


Step by Step

by cyphernaut



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2017-10-28 15:36:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyphernaut/pseuds/cyphernaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeffrey isn't quite sure how John convinced him to take Misha home with him, but he knows he's not giving the kid back, no matter how much he might be in over his head.</p><p>(I wasn't sure whether to attach the "slavery" tag to this fic.  The relationships are more custodial than the term implies, and within the universe no one would consider themselves to be "slaves" but rather subordinate to the head of household.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to a prompt on the Supernatural Kink Meme on Live Journal. Thanks to the prompter and to those who are motivating me to continue this fic. Also, if anyone would like to beta, please let me know. I have been posting with typos!

John always put together a good lunch, which was probably why Jeffrey put up with the brazen discussions about Jeffrey's personal life during what was supposed to be a monthly chat about business. They sat on the terrace behind John's house while the staff cleared away the remnants of their meal.

“Where's your driver?” John asked.

“I left him with Jensen.”

John's mouth ticked up into a knowing smirk, and Jeffrey frowned. “I don't like him taking taxis. It's not safe.”

“Then have him stay home when you're out. You're spoiling him because he's your only one, Jeffrey. You need to take on a few more.”

Jeffrey gripped his napkin. He'd heard the same lecture from his mother just a week ago. Not about spoiling Jensen, of course, but about taking on another dependent. Hell, even Jensen had mentioned that he'd like to have someone else around the house with him now that Jeff was out of town so much. Jeff wasn't so sure, though. There was just something strange about taking on another person after four years of just him and Jensen.

“I don't want to mess up what Jensen and I have.”

It sounded lame, even to Jeffrey's own ears, and John laughed. “That kid's got you wrapped around his little finger.”

Maybe it was true, but Jeffrey couldn't bring himself to care, not when Jensen's face lit up the way it did when Jeff walked into the door. Or when he could feel the warm insistence of Jensen's body pressed up against him even when he was sleeping.

He was snapped out of his reverie when John cursed suddenly. One of John's boys was racing barefoot across the grass. Jeffrey had seen him a few years before, a kid in his twenties who'd answered the door and stared at him curiously before one of the household staff had escorted Jeffrey back to John's office.

“Just a minute,” John muttered, and stalked over to where the boy was picking flowers from the garden and lacing them through the buttonholes of his open shirt. The kid scrambled to his feet at John's approach and started talking. Jeffrey couldn't make out what he was saying, but the crack of John's hand across the his face rang clearly across the yard. The kid shook his head quickly, and John grabbed him and marched him back into the house.

Jeffrey wasn't sure what to say when John got back, so even after John apologized for the incident, he kept quiet, trying to shrug it off.

“You don't know how lucky you are with Jensen,” John told him. “That kid...” He indicated the house. “I don't know what to do about him anymore. He's out of control.”

Jeffrey looked back at where the kid had been messing with the flower garden. “He's just a kid, John.”

 

“If you want to take a crack at him, I'll sign the papers today. No charge. Hell, I'll even pay the change of registration fee.”

Jeffrey winced. While he understood reimbursing a former household for medical expenses or other costs a dependent might have incurred, there was a fine line between that and human trafficking. John's muddling of the two made him uncomfortable. Jeffrey still hadn't asked his mother what sort of arrangement she'd made with Jensen's aunt.

“Of course, if you're too afraid of Jensen...” John's grin made Jeffrey want to sock him one.

“Jensen's actually been asking me to take someone else on,” he replied testily, and John suddenly had that gleam in his eye he always got when he knew he was about to get exactly what he wanted.

* * *

It had only taken about half on hour to get the temporary change of residence sorted out. Most of the time had been spent prompting the kid – Misha – to sign in the right places. He'd needed enough prodding that Jeffrey had finally asked him whether he really wanted to go home with him. The kid had nodded and hurried the rest of it along. Not an auspicious start.

Things weren't looking any better when John came out of the house with Misha seemingly dead on his feet, propped up on one side by a young woman about Jensen's age and on the other by a boy who couldn't have been far into his teens. John rushed over to explain.

“I gave him some Ambien. Otherwise the drive will be a nightmare.” Jeffrey tried to process the information as Misha was placed in the back seat.

“Where's his stuff?”

John shook his head. “He'd just tear it apart. I'd keep the child locks on the doors, too. He'll try to open them in the middle of the drive.”

His head spun. What he'd seen of the kid had been off beat, but not dangerous. “John...”

“It's going to be fine. He really likes you, Jeffrey.” John shook his hand and clapped him on the shoulder before Jeffrey could protest any more. And somehow Jeff found himself driving down the freeway with a drugged up boy sleeping in the back.

 

In the end, John was right about the child locks. After half an hour stuck in traffic, Misha jumped up like a disheveled Jack-in-the-box and was pulling on the door handles before Jeffrey could get out a word.

“The door is broken,” he complained, pressing on any button he could reach. “And your windows.” He gave up on getting out and started pulling at his clothes. “Your car doesn't work right, and you're the driver for yourself. You need a driver and a door and window fixer. I hate these clothes.”

Jeffrey opened his mouth to reply, unsure what he was going to say, but when he looked at Misha's reflection in the mirror, the boy was stark naked, trying to stuff his clothes in the crack between the door and the seat.

Jeff managed not to run off the road. Barely. He didn't manage to keep from swearing, and Misha jumped back from him.

“I'm not going to do anything to you. Just put your clothes back on.”

“They're not mine.” Misha stared out the window at nothing in particular, unconcerned with his exhibitionism. “I don't have any clothes, and I'm lucky John dressed me in anything at all, but now I'm not lucky and I hate them.”

Now that Jeff thought about it, Misha had been wearing something different when he'd run across the lawn. The kid had been so sleepy that Jeffrey hadn't thought anything of it when he came out in a tee shirt, soft pants, and the flip-flops.

“We'll get you some new clothes, but you need to put those back on for now. People can see you.”

“I hate them, and after you fix your window, I'm going to open it up and throw them out. I'll open up the door and throw them out. Up and out, and out to the wind, and maybe I'll fly out, too, if I could fly.”

“I tell you what,” Jeff offered, trying not to show panic at the way the situation was spiraling out of control. “If you put those clothes back on right now, we'll stop at the next store and buy you something new. You can pick them out. How would you like that?”

Misha grabbed the clothes and held them tightly to his chest. “I'd like it if you aren't tricking me, but if you're tricking me I won't like it.”

“I'm not tricking you.”

“You'd better not be.” Misha started putting his clothes back on. “If you're tricking me, I'll...I'll...” His face crumpled and he seemed to deflate as he searched for a consequence for Jeff's potential deception.

“I'm not tricking you, Misha,” Jeff repeated gently, but Misha was already perking up.

“I see the next store!” Misha smacked the window to indicate the big box store coming up on the right. “It's the Target store!”

Misha continued to pound on the window as Jeff made his way to the exit ramp.

* * *

Target was cheap, and Misha loved everything, so shopping was turning out to be easier than Jeffrey had expected. Misha had fussed at the shoe section, and insisted on Crocs, no matter what Jeff said to him, but they could get him more shoes later. The kid had seemed close to tears, and then so relieved when Jeff had relented, that Jeff was finding it hard to deny him anything. Misha was pretty tractable when he got everything he wanted.

At the moment, he wanted Jeff's approval on several flannel shirts, and Jeff pointed him to the dressing room.

“Why? Are you going to fuck me in there?” Misha asked, to the horror of several shoppers around them.

“Misha!” Jeffrey hissed, and Misha looked up at him, clearly puzzled by the strong reaction. Jeff steered him to the dressing rooms. “You can't say things like that in public, Misha.”

Misha stared silently at the floor until Jeffrey prompted him to say something.

“What about the clothes?” he asked, and Jeff looked back at where they'd left the cart. The clothes were still sitting there, undisturbed.

“What about them?”

“Are we still going to get them?” Misha clarified. “Or did you change your mind now?”

It as probably too soon for physical contact, at least according to whatever the current self help books were saying about dependents, but Jeff couldn't help at least putting a hand on Misha's shoulder. “Yes, I'm still buying you the clothes.”

“Thanks. And I'm sorry I asked if you were going to fuck me.” Misha looked up into Jeff's eyes and flinched at his reaction to the apology.

“Misha, you've got to stop saying that word in public.”

“Which word?”

Jeff didn't think the kid was being a smart ass. “Fuck,” he said quietly. “It's not polite.”

Misha didn't respond and Jeff went to get the cart while he tried on the shirts. When he got back, Misha was looking at his reflection in the new clothes.

“Don't you think I look hot in these? You're really not going to do that word to me in here?”

Jeff smiled. “Why don't you try on the rest of the shirts and we'll get something to eat and head back?”

“You're hungry and not horny,” Misha said, pulling the shirt over his head, and Jeff sucked in his breath loud enough that Misha turned to look at him. The kid's back was a road map of bright red welts that extended down past his waistline. His face must have shown his shock, because Misha blurted out, “I saved a baby!” before Jeff could say anything.

“What?” he asked, confused by the change in topic.

“There was a baby about to be killed by the falling power lines, and I ran out and covered it up and saved it, and then the power lines fell on me, but the baby was saved.”

Jeff wasn't sure how to react, but Misha blithely continued with the story. “The mayor wanted to have a parade for me and give me the key to the city, but I didn't want to show off, so I told him not to, but that's why my back looks like that.”

“Misha,” he started, but he was completely out of his depth. When he saw those nervous blue eyes looking up at him expectantly he just said, “Let's try the rest of these shirts on.”

* * *

By the time they'd gotten through the check out, Misha was eying the fast food menu in anticipation, so Jeffrey was a little surprised when he seemed stymied at the counter. Finally Jeff just ordered for him, more food than they were going to eat, but at least enough variety that there had to be something Misha liked.

He liked it all. Jeff had half expected Misha to wolf down the food like a half starved animal, but the boy had table manners, at least. That or he was just copying everything Jeff was doing. Misha insisted on packing up the leftovers, as much as Jeffrey preferred to leave the greasy stuff behind.

Misha wouldn't even take his eyes off the food - or the clothes, for that matter - when he went to the bathroom to change into his new things. He was so adamant about nothing “getting lost” that Jeffrey was surprised when he started to shove his old clothes into the trash can.

“There's nothing wrong with those,” Jeff told him, fishing the clothes out before the wet paper towels could get them too damp.

“They're cursed. You better not touch them, or you'll be cursed, too.”

Jeff stuffed the damp clothes into an empty shopping bag. “You don't have to keep them. We'll give them to charity.”

“And then the poor people will get cursed. You have to throw them away right now. I don't want them in the car with me.” Misha was getting more agitated by the moment, and while the easiest thing would be to appease him, Jeff didn't want to set a bad precedent of the boy getting what he wanted by threatening to throw a fit.

“Misha, we're not going to throw them away,” he said firmly, and when Misha didn't argue, he softened his tone. “But I can promise you that neither of us will be cursed.” Misha looked doubtful, but he continued. “We'll keep them away from all your new clothes. How does that sound?”

Misha nodded slowly, and Jeff felt tension he didn't realize he was holding drain from his body. Despite everything that Jensen had gone through, he'd never threatened to have a meltdown in a public restroom, and Jeffrey was suddenly grateful for that fact.

They walked back to the car in peace, and Jeff pointedly put the unwanted clothes in the trunk, while he rest went into the back seat where Misha was riding. Or where he thought Misha was riding. The boy had already settled himself into the passenger seat up front.

“Don't you want to sit with your new clothes?” he ventured, hopefully.

“No, I want to sit with you.”

Jeff thought about it. The front seat didn't have child locks. Misha hadn't seemed as erratic in the store as he'd been when he'd first woken up, but Jeff had no idea how long the good spell would last. He sat down in the driver's seat and looked over at Misha.

“If you sit up here, you have to promise me that you won't open the door until I tell you it's safe.”

Misha stared back gravely. “I will only open the door when you tell me, and I will never break my solemn vow to you.”

With a quick prayer, Jeff reached to turn the key in the ignition.

“Can you tell me it's safe now? I want to test it. I don't want it to be broken like the back door.”

He seemed so hopeful that Jeff had a hard time denying him. Maybe John had been right about Jensen, and here was another little finger for him to wrap himself around. “Okay, try it out.”

Grinning, Misha opened and shut the door several times, then turned back to Jeff. “Thanks!”

His mirth was contagious, and Jeff found himself grinning back as he started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

“And thanks for all the presents,” Misha continued.

Jeff laughed. “They're not really 'presents.'”

Whatever reaction Jeff had hoped for, it wasn't the still silence that immediately fell between them. He was confused for a few moments until Misha mustered the courage to say, “I can't pay you back. I don't have any money or a job or anything.”

“That's not... I mean they aren't real presents because they're things you need.” Misha didn't reply, and Jeff tried to clarify. “You never have to pay me back, Misha. My money belongs to you and Jensen, too.”

“I have money?” Misha asked, incredulous.

“Yes, everything belongs to all of us, as a family. I decide how we spend it...” After it came out of his mouth, Jeff realized how self contradictory it sounded, but Misha didn't notice.

“Do my clothes belong to all of us?”

“No, Misha, those are yours.” Jeff felt himself being pulled down the rabbit hole of explanations of collective ownership and personal property rights, so he finally just said, “They're presents.”

It was enough to satisfy Misha. “I got you a present, too.”

Startled, Jeff almost stopped the car. If Misha had shoplifted, he didn't know what he would do. There was no way the court would approve a change of household if Misha committed a crime the first day under his care.

Misha pulled a piece of asphalt from his pocket, and Jeff let out a breath.

“It's an enchanted stone,” Misha said, holding it up for Jeff's inspection. “I have a strong talent for spells. When I was a baby, some Gypsies caught me, and they were going to grind me up into some stew, but then they saw I had a talent, and I learned a lot of spell stuff, so I can be pretty useful for you.”

Glad that it wasn't stolen merchandise, Jeff nodded Misha on.

“I put a protective spell on it. Even if your enemies whip you and whip you, it won't hurt you at all.”

“I don't really have any enemies,” Jeff replied uncertainly.

“It works if your family whips you, too. If anybody tries to hurt you, it'll protect you. It's pretty useful.”

Jeff tried to smile, but couldn't quite pull it off, and Misha tucked his knees up under his chin, hugging them tightly as he reflected Jeff's own discomfort.

“It's a really nice present,” Jeff tried, but Misha was already off in his own world, clutching the rock and staring out the window.


	2. Chapter 2

Misha didn't realize that was falling asleep again until he woke up. He'd forgotten that he was riding in Jeffrey's car, and everything came back to him like a punch to the gut that took his breath away. He pushed the thoughts of the home and family he'd never see again out of his mind, and instead imagined that he was being driven to a celebration of how he'd saved a baby's life. Misha was a hero, and John had realized that he'd been wrong the whole time and wanted Misha to stay with him at home so he could show how sorry he was, but important government people said Misha had to go with them because he had to get some special awards. His new clothes were for the ceremony.

Jeffrey turned into a residential compound, and the security guard waved them through. Inside, the streets were curvy, just like in John's compound. As they wended their way deeper into the community, Misha tried to memorize the route, but it was too dark and there were too many turns. They finally stopped at a iron gate, which swung open as Jeffrey pressed a button. It was tall, but Misha would be able to climb it.

“Looks like Jensen sent the staff home,” Jeffrey said. He didn't seem happy about it, either, so Misha didn't say anything as they approached the house. It was about as big as John's house, but all the windows were dark. “He might be eating at the clubhouse,” Jeffrey continued. “We'll have to go pick him up. I don't like him walking in the dark.”

Jensen wasn't eating at the clubhouse. He was waiting at the door when they drove into the garage. He was good looking, and younger than Misha. He was dressed lazy, though, in worn jeans and a tee shirt, like he didn't care enough to look good for Jeffrey, or Jeffrey didn't care enough to get good looking clothes for him. Even the clothes Misha just got were nicer.

Misha waited while Jeffrey got out of the car. Jeffrey hadn't told him it was safe yet, and he wanted to see what Jeffrey was going to say about Jensen's messy clothes.

They talked too softly for Misha to hear, but they kissed and hugged, so Jeffrey probably wasn't mad. He even hooked his fingers in Jensen's belt loops while they talked, and Jensen smiled and nodded at them. They were like people on a television show.

Finally Jeffrey turned around and asked Misha to come meet Jensen. Misha wanted to make a good impression so that they could be good friends. He did everything he was supposed to do, saying hi and shaking hands, and thought he was doing okay, but Jeffrey looked anxious, and Misha started to get nervous, too. Then Jensen started to steal his presents from out of the car.

“Those are mine!” he snapped, and he grabbed them back out of Jensen's hands.

Right away, he knew he'd some something wrong. Jeffrey and Jensen both stared at him, and Jensen finally stammered, “I was just taking them to your room for you.”

Misha knew what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to say he was sorry and give them back. But he couldn't let the bags out of his hands. He held them even tighter and said, “You can take the one in the trunk.”

He waited for them to get mad at him, but Jensen took the bag out of the trunk, and Jeff said they were going to get him settled in. Misha felt stupid and small.

He didn't argue when they took his leftovers from him and put them in the refrigerator, right next to all the other food where anyone could eat it. He didn't get mad when they thought he was an idiot and showed him how to use a shower. And when Jeffrey asked him whether he wanted to watch a DVD with them or go to bed early, he didn't know what he was supposed to say, so he just stared at the floor and hoped Jeffrey would forget he'd asked him anything. They left him alone in the bedroom that was his, but not his at all.

Misha was pretty sure he'd made a bad first impression.

He got ready for bed, even though he wasn't tired. He found his favorites from the clothes they bought and kept them beside him under the covers, just in case. He imagined he was in an expensive hotel on his world tour, and he had to get a good night's sleep before his major appearance the next morning. The curse on the old clothes was too strong, though, even though it wasn't real. He could feel it looming from across the room, ready to smear everything in the house with its poison. He needed to take his medicine, but he didn't have any. He closed his eyes as tight as he could and tried to sleep, anyway.

* * *

Jensen's back was warm underneath Jeff's hand, and Jeff left it there to feel the steady rise and fall of Jensen's chest as they lay in bed. They needed to talk, but Jensen had been withdrawn all night, and Jeff didn't want to force the issue. In some ways Jensen had always been easy, never complaining, never causing trouble, but at times like this, when Jeff knew something was bothering him, he wished Jensen would give him something to work with, or at least look Jeff in the face for more than two seconds at a time.

“I know this is an adjustment,” Jeff murmured.

“It's just really fast,” Jensen answered, keeping his head turned toward the wall. Jensen was right. Usually a change of household would involve weeks, if not months, of discussion. Jensen and Misha should have at least had the chance to meet each other before the move. Technically, this was only a temporary arrangement, but Jeff couldn't imagine sending Misha back to John at this point, not after what he had seen of Misha's back. None of that should be Jensen's problem, though, and Jeff wasn't going to make things even more complicated for him by explaining the extenuating circumstances.

“I know, but we've been talking about it for so long, and on the phone it sounded like something you wanted.”

“It was. It is. It's just really real right now, and he's...” Jensen trailed off, and Jeff pulled him closer. “Why is he like that?”

“He just needs some time, Jensen.” When Jensen didn't reply, Jeff turned him around so that they were face to face. “There is no one in the world more important to me than you.”

Jensen rolled his eyes and pushed him away. “I know you read to say that in some self-help book.”

“That doesn't mean it's not true.”

“I'm not insecure in your love for me, or whatever,” Jensen finally snapped. “It just happened really fast, and he's weird, and he walks funny!”

“Maybe he thinks we walk funny,” Jeff quipped, before Jensen could apologize for his outburst. As much as Jeff was happy to finally get a candid reaction from him, Jensen looked ashamed. Jeff kissed him lightly. “We're going to work this out.”

Like that, it was settled. Jensen nodded and curled up into him, confident in Jeff's ability to make the arrangement work for all of them. Jeff didn't share his certainty, but he let himself doze off, happy that Jensen, at least, was feeling better.

Two hours later, the fire alarm went off.

* * *

The air in the kitchen was choked with smoke, but there wasn't enough heat for it to be a serious fire. He'd told Jensen to go outside, but the boy had stayed at his heels, and now that Jeff realized they weren't in serious danger, he didn't have the energy to insist. Instead, he squinted through the acrid cloud to see Misha standing at the stove, watching flames flicker out of a large stock pot.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” he shouted, and Misha jumped back from the pot and started rambling about curses and other things that made no sense to Jeff's adrenaline-charged brain. He rushed over to see the damage, but Misha backed away from him until he was cornered next to the sink. Jensen, apparently the only one of the three with any sense, had found the fire extinguisher and was slowly smothering the flames with some sort of white foam that was probably going to be hell to clean up the next day.

“Are you okay?” Jeff asked Misha, who was silently cowering next to the sink with his hands tucked until his arms. “Did you burn your hands?”

Misha didn't answer, just tried to back further into the counter as his eyes darted from Jeff to Jensen. “Let me see your hands, Misha.”

When Misha shook his head in response, Jeff just grabbed the boy's hands and turned them over in front of him. Misha screwed his eyes shut but didn't pull away.

His hands were fine.

Jeff sighed with relief and turned back to Jensen, who was poking through the contents of the stock pot. “It's clothes,” he said, and held the remains up for Jeff to see. They were the clothes Misha had been wearing when he left John's house.

Jeff took a deep breath. They were all okay. The house was okay. They needed to air out the kitchen and replace the fire extinguisher and stock pot. It could have been worse. “Let's get back to bed.”

“Jeff.” Jensen motioned him over, but Jeff wasn't in the mood to have a conversation.

“We can talk about it in th-”

“I think he should stay with you tonight.” Jensen glanced over to where Misha was huddled next to the microwave inspecting his fingers. “I'll sleep in my room.”

“Jensen...” Jeff held Jensen's face in his hands, running his thumbs across his jaw. “This was supposed to mean you were spending less time alone.”

Jensen bit his lip and shrugged. Not for the first time, Jeff felt a pang of guilt at Jensen's nonchalant attitude toward another failure on Jeff's part. “I'll make this up to you, okay?”

At Jensen's nod, Jeff turned his attention back toward Misha. “Okay, let's get you upstairs.”

“If you're going to punish me, can I hold the enchanted stone I gave you?” Misha asked as Jeff guided him back out of the kitchen and Jensen left for his own bedroom.

“No one's getting punished tonight,” Jeff assured him.

“I had to destroy the curse.”

Jeff shushed him, and they walked up to the bedroom in silence. After getting Misha situated on the sofa, Jeff locked the door, hoping the noise Misha would have to make opening it would be enough to wake him. It had been a long night, and they all needed their sleep.

* * *

Misha couldn't sleep. If he were on a quest, he would have already completed his first task, destroying the curse of his clothes. He thought about what his next tasks could be, but the fantasy fell flat in the face of what had happened. Jeffrey had told him that no one was getting punished tonight, and that was right. Jeffrey hadn't even yelled that much, and he hadn't smacked Misha at all.

Now Jeffrey was sleeping just a few steps away in his big bed. After doing something so bad, Misha got to sleep in Jeffrey's very own bedroom. Sometimes, John had let people stay in his bedroom overnight, but he'd always sent Misha away right after he was done with him. Jeffrey was different from John, though. John would have whipped him as soon as he saw the fire. Misha wondered whether Jeffrey saved all the punishments until the morning.

The next day's task would be to prove his fortitude. No matter the punishment, Misha would be brave, and Jensen and Jeffrey would see his true character and admire him. He would never cry out, and they would all marvel at his bravery.

That was if they didn't send him away. Misha tried not to think the thought, but it kept creeping up from the back of his head. John had told him that this was his last chance, that he was lucky people put up with him so far. Misha wasn't sure what happened after your last chance, but he always imagined it as a dark abyss of uncertainty that he could jump into and fall through forever. Maybe it was the looney bin.

If this was the last night of his last chance, he'd never know what it felt like to sleep in the bed with somebody. He turned that thought over in his head as he watched Jeffrey shift in his sleep. Maybe Misha could try it out quietly, just for a few minutes.

Misha crept over and climbed into the bed beside Jeffrey. He could hear every one of Jeffrey's breaths, and he tried to breathe at the same time, like a ninja would probably do. It was strange to feel a sleeping person beside him, and Misha used all of his ninja powers to keep Jeffrey from waking up. Then, Jeffrey put his hand on Misha's arm, and Misha realized that Jeffrey probably thought he was Jensen, anyway.

He pretended that he was Jensen, that he had put out the fire in the kitchen, and Jeffrey had smiled and said, “I can always depend on you, Jensen.” It was nice, but then Misha imagined that he was the one who'd put the fire out. Jeffrey had said, “I can always depend on you, Misha.” That was better. He was still thinking about that as he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

The alarm clock went off way too early for Jeff's liking. He turned over, hoping to spend a little bit of time curled up next to Jensen, who'd apparently returned during the night. Jeff started when he saw Misha beside him.

“What are you doing?” he asked, instantly regretting it when Misha flinched.

“There was a rabid raccoon by the couch, so I came over here so it couldn't give me rabies. I probably saved you a lot of money on medical bills.”

Jeff was not in the mood to deal with it, not at six in the morning, anyway, and not after having been woken at one in the morning by a fire in the kitchen. “Go back to sleep for now, and come find me when you get up. We have a lot of stuff to take care of today.”

As Misha shrunk back under the covers, Jeff turned to get ready. He hadn't been lying about having a big day ahead of them. He'd already asked Rob to schedule the medical checks that Misha was going to need, and Jeff was confident in his assistant's ability to get them in this afternoon.

On top of that, he had his actual work, but the last few days had been light, and Jeff didn't expect things to pick up until Monday. He had a few conference calls scheduled for the morning, but he planned to be done by the time the boys were up and about. Jensen certainly wasn't going to be up for another few hours.

He got ready quickly and quietly, careful not to wake Misha again, then headed down to his office where he was able to get in a good amount of work before Rob called to say that he had, indeed, scheduled the medical and dental checks for mid afternoon. He stopped to take a breath.

He'd never done anything so rash before, and he was starting to feel a twinge of something that wasn't quite regret. _Buyer's remorse_ , some twisted part of his mind supplied. But it wasn't that. It was fear. There was a good possibility that he was not going to be able to fix this, and he'd pulled Jensen into the mess as well.

As if summoned by his thought, Jensen appeared in the doorway, nervously loitering instead of coming in as he usually would. Jeff beckoned him over, and he stepped inside soundlessly.

“How'd you sleep?” Jeff asked, and Jensen shrugged.

“Okay, I guess,” he finally answered. “What about you? Did you...”

Jensen's face as he trailed off just about broke Jeff's heart. “Nothing happened between us,” Jeff assured him, standing to meet Jensen eye to eye. “It's not even legal. He just has his temporary residence permit right now.” Truth be told, Jeff was pushing it just to let Misha sleep in his room, much less his bed.

“It's none of my business, anyway,” Jensen murmured to the floor.

Abandoning words completely, Jeff lifted Jensen's chin and kissed him full on the lips. Jensen melted into him, and Jeff held him here for a while before pulling back.

“You can always talk to me, Jensen. You could have woken me up if this was bothering you.”

“I didn't want you to think I didn't want him here.”

“Oh, Jensen.” Jeff couldn't think of anything else to say. They were still working on Jensen's habit of concealing anything he thought might upset Jeff. Getting information from him was like pulling teeth, and Jeff got tired of playing interrogator over how his boy was feeling at any given time. Jeff had thought it a miracle when Jensen had brought up that he'd like to bring someone else into the household. Having Jensen explicitly express a desire as rare enough that Jeff had thrown caution to the wind when an opportunity to fulfill it had arisen.

“Sorry,” Jensen said, and Jeff pulled him in for another kiss.

“How about we all sit down and eat a late breakfast together?” Jeff suggested, and Jensen nodded his agreement, if only to get out of talking about his feelings.


	3. Chapter 3

An hour and a half later, breakfast was getting cold and Jeff was clutching the note that he'd found in his room, a room that had been conspicuously empty of Misha.

 _Sorry about the fire_ was scrawled across the crumpled page. Jeffrey read it again, as if it might hold some clue to Misha's mindset when he'd run off.

“Nobody's seen him at the clubhouse,” Mark told him, “and the security guards are sure he hasn't left the compound. They're on the lookout, but they think he's still at the house.”

“Thanks. You didn't tell them he was a runaway, did you?”

Mark shook his head. “I said he'd had a bad reaction to some cold medicine and might be confused about where he was. I doubt they'll think about it one way or another.”

The guards had probably seen a lot worse, and Mark, having been at the house years before it had passed from Jeffrey's uncle to Jeffrey, had a better handle on how the compound staff would react. Originally hired as a cook, he had pretty much been running the household by the time Jeffrey had arrived. This wasn't the first time Jeffrey had reason to be grateful for his experience, either. Mark had several dependents living with him at his own home, and his advice had been invaluable when Jensen had first moved in.

“What do you think I should do?”

“The only thing you can do: keep looking for him. He'll show up.”

“But what should I do when he shows up? What would you do if it were one of yours?”

“I don't know.” Mark hesitated for a moment, then continued. “To be honest, it wouldn't happen with mine, because they know better. If it did, they'd be neck deep in trouble, for the same reason. They wouldn't have set fire to the kitchen, either.”

Jeffrey fingered the note in his hands. Mark had always told him that Jensen was easy, that Jeffrey didn't know how good he had it, especially considering Jensen's age when he'd moved in. Maybe this was the universe balancing itself out, making him pay for every time he'd bothered Mark with inconsequential difficulties.

“I found him!” Jensen's voice rang out clearly from the front yard.

* * *

Despite everyone's best efforts, Misha was still huddled in the back of the crawl space under the porch, where Jensen had spotted him ten minutes before.

“I'm extremely photosensitive. If I go into the sunshine I'll die,” Misha informed them.

The blatant lie was an improvement over the incoherent protests he'd made when Jeffrey had approached him, hoping to escort him back inside the house.

“Come on out, Misha. I promise the sun won't hurt you.”

“You're not a doctor!”

With reason failing him, Jeffrey switched tactics. “I got your note, Misha.”

Misha perked up. “Did you write me one back?”

“I can.” Jeffrey motioned for pen, and one of the maids ran off to find one. “Is there anything you'd like it to say?”

“It has to be from your heart, like mine.”

The maid ran back and handed the pen over to Jeffrey. _Please come inside and eat lunch with me,_ Jeffrey carefully printed, then laid the note inside the crawl space.

Frowning, Misha perused the paper, turning it over several times as if looking for hidden messages. Finally, he looked back up at Jeff. “I accept your invitation, but I'm extremely photosensitive and I require protection from the sun.”

“What if you had a sheet over you?” the same maid who found Jeffrey the pen asked.

Misha thought about it for a while, then nodded. Jeffrey vowed to the give the girl a raise as she ran off again to find a sheet.

By the time she came back, Misha was already edging toward the opening, and he let Jeff drape the bed sheet over him as he emerged. Misha extended his arms so that the white fabric fluttered around him.

“I'm a ghost. If you try to whip me, the strap will fly right through me.”

“I'm not going to whip you,” Jeff said, guiding Misha deftly back to the front door.

“Yeah, because the strap will fly right through me, and it might even hit you instead.”

“That's not why.”

Misha dropped the subject, then crossed the threshold, where he briefly stumbled before catching himself on Jeff's supporting arm.

“Why don't you take that sheet off before you fall down?” Jeff suggested, pulling it up and over Misha's head. Outside of the dim crawlspace, the filth covering Misha's skin and pajamas was glaringly evident. Jeff's brow furrowed at the sight. Misha looked like an overgrown street urchin, doleful expression and all.

“I don't want you to punish me.”

“Okay,” Jeff said, and Misha stared at the ground in response. “How about you go to your room to take a shower and put on some clean clothes, and then we'll eat lunch together?”

“I don't want you to lock me in there.”

“I won't.”

Misha hesitated, the gears turning in is head as he apparently weighed Jeff's credibility. “I don't want anyone else to lock me in, either. I don't want to be locked in at all.”

Jeff gently lifted Misha's chin until the boy met his eyes. “Misha,” he said quietly, “No one is going to lock you in. Now, I'd like you to go upstairs to your room, take a shower, and put on some clean clothes so that we can have lunch together. Can you do that for me?”

As if spellbound, Misha nodded slowly.

“Great. I will see you at lunch.”

Misha nodded again before heading upstairs. Jeff wondered whether it was too early for a drink.

* * *

Jeffrey furtively checked his Blackberry from the doctor's waiting room. He'd tried to be good about keeping his phone off in the hospital, but he couldn't shake the feeling that Rob might be trying to contact him with something important. It was a small blow to his ego when the messages reflected no desperate need for him.

“Mr. Morgan?”

He shut the phone off quickly and stood to meet the doctor. “Is everything okay?”

“It's fine. Jensen's changing back into his clothes. We have a few more tests to run with Misha.”

“What about his back?” Jeffrey asked. He'd already discussed the situation with them, worried that they'd be mandated to report the injuries to social services.

“It'll be bruised for a few days. If it's hurting him, he can take some Tylenol.”

Jeffrey frowned. Tylenol seemed woefully inadequate for what he'd seen. “You can't give him anything stronger?”

She shook her head. “I can prescribe something topical, but it's not going to be that different from normal hand lotion. Frankly, I'm more worried about his feet. I'd like to check for soft tissue damage, but he won't let us examine them.”

Thinking back to the confrontation over the Crocs and Jensen's comment on Misha's gait, Jeffrey started to piece things together. “They hit his feet? Why would they do that?”

“It hurts like hell and it doesn't leave any marks,” the doctor replied grimly.

A cry from the examination rooms startled them both before Jeffrey could fully formulate his reaction to the doctor's information. They rushed inside to see Misha glaring at the nurses.

“Don't touch me!” he shouted, before noticing Jeffrey's presence and calming considerably. “They're trying to steal all my life away from me and suck it into a needle.”

“It's just a blood test, Misha,” Jeff assured him. “We need it for your paperwork. They're only going to take a little bit.”

“I don't want my life to get sucked away.”

Jeff looked helplessly at the medical personnel around him. Finally, the nurse holding the needle set it down on a tray and stepped toward Misha.

“Sometimes I feel faint when I give blood, too, but it helps to drink some juice. We'll get you some juice so you don't feel so bad after we draw the blood.”

Misha looked doubtfully over at Jeffrey, who tried to give him the most reassuring look as possible. “You have to give me the juice first.”

It took a few minutes to get the juice, and then another when Misha insisted on a straw as well. Jeffrey wondered whether he was setting a bad precedent, but the nurses seemed happy to accommodate him. After Jeffrey's hasty apology outside of the exam room was waved off with a whispered, “He's completely traumatized, poor thing,” Jeffrey let the professionals handle the situation how they wanted.

Misha, for his part, had recovered from his earlier fear and was ready to move forward. “You,” he said imperiously to the nurse who'd brought him the juice, “are the only one who is allowed to touch me. No one else can get close to me, so stay away.” He turned to Jeff. “Except you. You can hold my hand and check to make sure my life doesn't get drained out.”

Jeff took Misha's proffered hand and sat down next to him on the exam table. The nurse gave Jeffrey a small smile as she swabbed Misha's inner elbow with alcohol. “This might pinch a bit,” she said, and the grip on Jeffrey's hand tightened. He wondered whether he should be taking more time off work while Misha got settled in.

Truth be told, it was nice to be needed.

* * *

Misha picked at the band-aid on his elbow. Nurse Julie had told him not to take it off, but it was bothering him every time he bent his arm. Catching Jensen staring at him, he pulled his hand away and let the band-aid itch him. Jensen didn't have a band-aid, because he hadn't gotten his blood sucked out. They hadn't put jelly on Jensen's feet and taken a look inside with the ultrasound camera, either. Most importantly, Jensen didn't have to see the psychologist Jeffrey was talking to. Jeffrey had told him that it was just a competency check for Misha's change of household papers, but Misha was suspicious. He wished he hadn't been so bad in the morning.

When Jeffrey called him over, Misha tried to look as normal as possible. He said all the polite things when Jeffrey introduced him to the psychologist so she would know he wasn't crazy. She was polite, too, and even friendly, telling him to call her Traci and letting him choose a soda from inside a tiny refrigerator. Before he knew it, he was sitting in a chair across from her inside her office and sipping a cold Cherry Coke from a twisty straw. So far, it was probably the best doctor's visit he'd ever had, and he looked around the office to check out all the decorations. Mostly it was candles and little sculptures and books, but a giant mirror on the side of the wall caught his eye.

“Is somebody behind there watching us?”

Traci laughed like she and Misha were in on a joke together. “Jeffrey was worried, and he wanted to make sure you were okay in here.”

Brightening, Misha waved to the mirror. “I'm fine. I have a Cherry Coke. Do you want to come inside?”

“He can't hear you,” Traci explained. Misha was a little disappointed, but Traci told him that they were supposed to have privacy. She even closed a curtain over the mirror so Jeffrey couldn't see them anymore. Misha wanted to pretend like they were spies, but he decided against it, since this was an important appointment.

“Do you know what this session is for, Misha?”

He nodded. Jeffrey had explained everything to him about a million times. “It's the competency check to make sure I'm competent to decide to live with Jeffrey and not John.”

Traci was writing down notes on what he said, so Misha pretended he was an important executive and she was his secretary. “You've lived with John a long time, haven't you? Why do you want to change households now?”

Misha hesitated. Jeffrey had told him to tell the truth, but that's because Jeffrey didn't know the whole truth. Misha heard the real reason in his head clearly, in John's biting voice. This was his last chance because John was sick of dealing with his bullshit all the time. He'd better sign the papers and make it work because John sure as hell wasn't going to put any more effort into someone who was determined to fuck up every god damned thing he touched. In his memory, the words lashed down on his ears like the strap on his back. He felt himself curling up on the chair and forced his feet flat on the floor.

“Jeffrey and Jensen only have two people at their house, so I can be more useful to them. I have a lot of skills they need.”

“Don't they need your skills at John's house, too?”

“Yeah, they all wanted me to stay. They begged me and begged me, but I had to think of the greater good.” He looked down at his Cherry Coke and played out the scene in his mind, John on his knees pleading for Misha to reconsider while everyone else cried over his departure. They were so sad about it, but they still respected him because it was the noble choice.

“It must be nice to be wanted so much.”

For a second, the two realities jarred up against each other, and Misha felt the sharp pang of clarity that the people who knew him best hadn't wanted him at all. He tried to hold onto the fantasy that he had created, but it had already disintegrated around him. He wished the mirror was still there so he could check whether his face was betraying him.

Luckily, when Misha didn't keep talking, Traci changed the subject to Misha's back. Slowly regaining confidence, he told her the story of saving the baby at his own peril, and how everyone in town cheered his bravery. It was in much more detail than the version he'd told Jeffrey, and Traci was so entranced by it that she didn't even bother to write most of it down.

“That's a great story,” she told him, and Misha bit his lower lip to keep from grinning too proudly at the praise. “You have a great imagination. Did you think of it before, or did it just come to you now?”

Misha considered the question. It _was_ a really good story, but he wanted it to be real. Then again, he also wanted to have the skill of thinking of really good stories. “I thought of some of it before, but most of it I just made up now.”

“I'd love to hear more of them sometime.” She smiled warmly at him, and Misha felt himself smile back, all the way from inside his chest to his face. “And maybe once we know each other a little better, you'll feel comfortable enough to tell me what really happened.”

“Yeah, okay,” Misha said, but he didn't think it was true. He was going to try to forget it or pretend it happened to somebody else. He just didn't want to disappoint Traci, since she was so nice to him. Barely anybody at his old house had appreciated his stories, even when they were much more interesting than what had actually happened. He felt bad for not wanting to meet her at first. He wondered how long their appointment was supposed to be, and whether she was going to give him another soda.

* * *

They were running late enough that Jeffrey was starting to get worried. He'd already sent Jensen down to the coffee shop to get something to drink, and without the company Jeffrey was about to go stir crazy, not to mention his worry over Misha's ability to pass the competency check.

When the two finally emerged, Jeff practically jumped out of his chair to meet them.

“How did it go?”

“Great!” Misha exclaimed. “I answered all the questions. They were really easy for me.”

Jeffrey searched the doctor's face for some sign, but she was inscrutably pleasant.

“Misha, why don't you go down to the coffee shop and get something to eat while we talk? Jensen's already there.”

“But I want to know if I'm crazy.”

That was exactly what Jeffrey wanted to know, but not where Misha could hear them. While he fumbled for an excuse to get Misha out of the room, the psychologist stepped in.

“It's my professional opinion that you are not crazy.”

“I knew it!” Misha cheered. “I kept telling them that I wasn't crazy, but nobody believed me.”

“You're definitely not crazy. You've been living in a very particular situation, and you've developed very particular ways to deal with that situation. Now that you're living with Jeffrey, those things aren't going to be helpful, and you're going to have to learn some new ways of behaving.”

Misha looked thoughtful, biting the inside of his cheek as he considered the words. Not for the first time, Jeffrey wished he could see into the boy's head. “It's going to be fine, Misha. Why don't you go join Jensen at the coffee shop? I'll be right down.”

For a moment, Jeffrey thought Misha might argue with him, but instead he stretched up to kiss Jeffrey on the cheek before hurrying out of the waiting room.

“Is he really okay?” Jeff asked doubtfully.

“No, he's not. He's obviously sustained severe psychological trauma, and he's probably still feeling the effects of whatever pills they've been giving him. Whatever he's been taking, it wasn't prescribed by his physician.”

“What does that mean? Are you reporting this? Should _I_ be reporting this?”

“You could,” she said, sighing, “and it would be investigated. Honestly, though, they could turn around and say that they were giving him vitamins and aspirin, and for all we know they could be telling the truth. And the law permits the use of reasonable force to maintain order in the household.”

As soon as he heard the words, Jeff saw red. It was all he could do to keep from snapping at her. “You saw what they did to him. How is that at all reasonable?”

She held up her hands, trying to placate him as she continued. “I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying that there's a good chance that an investigation wouldn't find any evidence of domestic abuse, especially considering Misha's behavior. And again,” she continued, cutting him off before he could say anything on Misha's behalf, “I'm not saying it's right, but you'll put him through months of investigation, and the result will probably be a court ruling that they didn't do anything wrong, if the case isn't completely dropped before that happens. In the meantime, Misha will be institutionalized, and you definitely won't get the change of household approved.”

When she put it that way, it didn't sound like such a great option. It just really pissed him off that John would get off scot-free after what he'd done, and even worse, have the opportunity to do the same thing to the others under his care.

“Right now he's in as good a situation as he could hope for, Jeffrey. I'm going to go through with the competency check. Regardless of the other issues he's having, the most rational thing Misha could do right now is choose to change households.”

Jeffrey couldn't take that away from him. Even if Jeff was in completely over his head, at least he was trying, and it had to be better than what Misha was getting at John's house.

“Okay. Just tell me what I need to do.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I had to take off last week because it was a big holiday. I will try to update every week from now on.

The coffee in the hospital café was probably the worst Jensen had ever had. Or maybe it was just the smell of of industrial grade disinfectant that permeated everything in the building. Or maybe it was Jensen's pissy mood over the fact that Jeff had rescheduled his doctor's appointment without asking him and then forced him to wait in the hospital while at least ten perfectly good taxis were lined up outside the entrance. For that matter, Christian could have have taken him home and come back in the time it was taking for Misha and Jeff to finish with the psychologist.

Fingering the credit card Jeff had left him with, he told himself that he really shouldn't be annoyed at Jeff about this. He got Rob to put things on Jeff's schedule for him all the time. The comparison didn't hold up, though. Jeff really didn't know his own schedule, and _told_ him to talk to Rob. Jensen _did_ know his own schedule, or at least he did until Jeff started making changes in it without consulting him.

His sullen musings were interrupted by Misha, who'd come down alone.

“Jeffrey said I can get something to eat.”

Jensen handed over the credit card and watched Misha turn it over in his hands several times before looking back up at Jensen. Jensen wondered whether he'd even _seen_ a credit card before.

“Jeffrey said you have to get it for me.”

“No, he didn't,” Jensen muttered, taking the card back and heading toward the counter. “What do you want?”

Misha trailed him to the cashier. “Same as you.”

Getting irritated at Misha was kind of like being mad at a kicked puppy for bleeding on your shoes. Jensen wished Jeff would just say what was wrong with him.

“You want a danish and a latte?” Jensen asked, and when Misha didn't answer, he continued under his breath, “Because that's what you're getting.” 

He ordered the food while Misha waited silently. After the barista handed it over, Jensen led them both back to the table. “So how was it with the shrink?”

“Traci? She really liked me. She wants to see me again.”

“I'll bet,” Jensen said, and instantly regretted it. “Sorry, I'm just in a bad mood.”

“That's okay.” Misha was picking apart the danish and avoiding Jensen's gaze. “Is it because of me?”

Jensen shook his head. “It's nothing.”

“I'm sorry if I ruined everything for you.”

“You didn't. I'm glad you're here.” Jensen was surprised to realize that it was the truth. Misha was weird, but Jensen _did_ want someone else around. Misha was also kind of nice when he wasn't acting totally batshit crazy. And it was hard not to like a kicked puppy.

“I kissed Jeffrey.” The declaration came out of nowhere, and Jensen almost choked on his coffee. Misha continued, “I kissed him goodbye on the cheek when I came down here.”

“Yeah, of course you did.” Jensen tried to make sense of his own reaction to the thought of Misha and Jeff kissing each other. He wasn't jealous, exactly, but there was something disquieting about the thought, like the ground under him wasn't quite as firm as he thought it was. It was silly. This was what Jensen had wanted. “I mean, you're in our family now, so that's normal, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Misha himself seemed troubled by the memory, or maybe he was just reflecting Jensen's own reaction. His earlier bravado was completely gone, though, and he looked strangely lost without it. “I don't know if he liked it. He wants me to act more like you.”

“He said that?” That would have been a dick thing to say, and not like Jeff at all. While Jeff could be irritatingly condescending and oblivious at times, for the most part he treated Jensen's emotions as if they were made out of spun glass. If anything, he should be even more careful with Misha, who actually did seem at risk of having his psyche shattered by a thoughtless word.

Misha shrugged. “It's obvious.” His face twisted, and for a second Jensen thought that Misha was going to break down and cry. He pulled himself together, though, and instead stared intently at the remains of his danish.

* * *

The boys had apparently bonded somewhat at the coffee shop, which was a relief to Jeff, who was still reeling over the sheer quantity of information and advice that Traci had given him. Needing time to think everything over, he had volunteered to sit up front. With Misha joining the household, they'd probably have to think of getting something bigger than the sedan.

As they pulled into the garage, Jeffrey asked Christian to go inside with Jensen so that he and Misha could talk. He didn't miss the sudden change in Misha, as if someone had pulled every string in his body taut. 

“Don't worry, it's nothing bad,” Jeffrey said, as if his words could do any good. He moved into the back seat to sit next to Misha, who subtly shied away from him.

Traci's words echoed in his head. _Fantasy prone. Dissociative tendencies. Post-traumatic stress._ It all sounded so clinical, and Jeff had a hard time reconciling it with the real, live person sitting in front of him, the poor kid who seemed scared shitless at the mere prospect of being alone in the car with an authority figure.

“I'm sorry,” Misha said.

“It's okay. You're not in trouble.” Misha clearly didn't believe him, but Jeff ignored the doubt. “Traci told me you were worried about what happened last night, and you were wondering why I hadn't punished you.”

Misha didn't reply, just crossed his arms tightly across his chest and stared down at his knees.

“In our family, we don't like to punish each other. We like to forgive each other.” The words sounded awkward and unnatural, but Jeff continued on as Traci had suggested. “Starting that fire last night was very dangerous, and it cannot happen again. Is that clear to you?”

Misha nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“Look at me and speak up, Misha.”

Misha's gaze made it as far up as Jeffrey's chin, and he whispered something that Jeffrey interpreted as an affirmative.

“Thank you. Now, I'm not going to punish you. I forgive you. That means it's over and you don't have to worry about it anymore.”

He waited for some sort of reaction from Misha, but the kid just sat there, hiding inside himself. He had no idea how to be any less threatening, so Jeff plowed on, regardless of whether anything seemed to be getting through.

“I also want to apologize for not listening when you tried to tell me how important it was to you not to bring those clothes back home with us. I'm sorry, and I hope you can forgive me.”

“What if I don't?” Misha asked, clearly confused by the prospect of any sort of choice.

“Then I'll be worried that you're still mad at me, and it might hurt our relationship.”

“But I'm not mad at you.”

“Then you know how I feel,” Jeff teased. When Misha didn't smile, Jeff became serious again. “I really am sorry I made you bring those clothes home.”

“Because I burned them?”

“No, because it upset you. Your feelings are important to me.”

Jeff could see the unasked question in Misha's eyes. They'd had enough conversation, though, and Jeff didn't want to dilute the message with too much detail. Misha had a lot to think about. So did Jeff, for that matter.

* * *

Misha sat on the bed flipping his note over and over. _Sorry about the fire._ And on the other side, in Jeffrey's neat handwriting, _Please come inside and eat lunch with me._ It hadn't been a trick; they'd really eaten lunch together.

It had been the best day Misha had had for a really long time. After their talk, Jeffrey had let Misha stay outside on the grass for as long as he wanted. The only rule was that he couldn't get too close to the water. Misha didn't want to get close to the pool, anyway, but the river behind the house looked cool. Jensen said it wasn't a river at all, just a man-made canal that ran through different parts of the compound, but Misha pretended it was a great river that could take him anywhere in the world. He stayed away from it, even though Jeffrey wasn't watching him. He'd decided he was going to do everything Jeffrey told him, whether he wanted to or not.

Dinner had been nice, too, with all the food in the middle of the table so that he could choose whatever he wanted. Jeffrey and Jensen had talked the whole time, a lot of it all about the good things they wanted Misha to try, like Mark's enchiladas or playing basketball at the clubhouse. Misha didn't want to get his hopes up, so he tried not to listen to all of it. He wanted to imagine something, but he also wanted to be there with Jeffrey and Jensen eating dinner.

Afterward, when Jeffrey had to work and Jensen had to study, Misha said that he had important things to do, too. He went back to his new bedroom and checked to make sure that all his stuff was still there. Somebody had moved the clothes he'd hidden under the bed sheets to the closet, but nothing was missing.

A knock on the door startled him from his musings, and he quickly stuffed the note back into his pocket. Jeffrey was there, right in the doorway of Misha's own bedroom, and Misha had to remind himself that he probably wasn't in trouble. Maybe Jeffrey wanted Misha to suck him off where Jensen couldn't see.

“I have some stuff for your back,” Jeffrey said, holding out a tube for Misha to see. “Can I come in?”

Misha nodded and sat up straight. His back only hurt a little bit now, but he didn't want to argue when Jeffrey was being so nice to him. He was glad that he didn't when Jeffrey made him take off his shirt and started rubbing the medicine into his back. As Jeffrey's warm hand made little circles on his skin, Misha found himself hoping that the bruises didn't go away for a long time.

“How's that? Is it okay?” Jeffrey asked him.

“Yeah.” It was more than okay, and Misha wanted to do something nice back for Jeffrey. “Do you want me to suck you off after this?”

Jeffrey's hand suddenly stilled on his back, and Misha closed his eyes tight, wishing he hadn't said anything. Keeping his eyes shut, he let Jeffrey turn him around. He pretended he was floating down the river behind their house, far away where it was quiet and dark.

The third time Jeffrey said his name, Misha looked carefully up at him.

“Misha, is that something you want, or something you feel like you have to do?”

Unsure of the correct answer, Misha shrugged. Jeffrey frowned, but he didn't shake Misha and yell that he had to answer. Emboldened, Misha said, “I thought you'd like it.”

Sighing, Jeffrey slid his hands down Misha's arms and intertwined their fingers. “After your change of household gets approved, that's something we can talk about. For now, I want you to concentrate on feeling better and getting settled in, okay?”

Misha nodded and let Jeffrey finish rubbing the cream into his back. Afterward, Jeffrey gave him a pill to swallow. Misha grabbed the water from his bedside table and took a big gulp, then opened his mouth wide to show Jeffrey that the pill was gone.

“You don't have to show me. I trust you.”

The world seemed to stop for a minute, and Misha felt a burning shame run through him. Jeffrey was closing up the bottle of pills, oblivious to everything going on in Misha's head. Misha's mind had always been his sanctuary, a hideaway for himself and his bag of tricks that he didn't want anyone else to see. With Jeffrey, though, Misha was starting to feel the urge to bridge the gulf that his secrets created. It wasn't a good idea. Misha had a lot of secrets.

“I have something to tell you,” Misha said.

Jeffrey looked up expectantly, and Misha couldn't bring himself to say anything. He just held out his hand, letting the soggy pill on his palm silently incriminate him.

“Why didn't you tell me you didn't want to take it? I thought you'd want it for the pain.”

Shaking his head, Misha tried to formulate an answer that made sense. “I'll take it now. I want to, now.”

“The coating's washed off that one. It'll taste terrible.”

The terrible taste was probably a good punishment for Misha. He popped the pill in his mouth and swallowed it dry. He imagined that the suffering was to earn Jeffrey's forgiveness, but Jeffrey still didn't look happy.

“I don't like you lying to me.”

Misha wanted to say that he hadn't lied, because he hadn't said that he'd swallowed the pill. But he knew that he had tricked Jeffrey, and even worse, he'd done it successfully. A strange part of him wished that Jeffrey had caught him in the act and made him take the medicine against his will. “I'm sorry.”

He must have looked very sorry, because Jeffrey pulled him in for a hug, carefully avoiding his bruised back and cradling his head until Misha rested it on Jeffrey's shoulder. Misha didn't know whether he liked it or not. Jeffrey's breath was tickling his ear, and he didn't quite understand what was going on. At John's house, he'd never really been sorry for anything he'd done, just sorry for what had been done back to him. Jeffrey's hand started making soothing circles on his neck, and he relaxed further into his chest as Jeffrey spoke.

“I want you to trust me with the truth.”

Misha nodded, letting the words sink into him. They both sat there in silence, Jeffrey massaging his neck and scalp while he considered his options.

“I have something else to tell you,” he finally said into Jeffrey's neck.

Jeffrey stopped rubbing while he listened to what Misha had to say.

“I didn't save a baby. They whipped me.”

“I know, baby,” Jeffrey replied wrapping his arms tighter around Misha.

With the truth out, Misha felt small and exposed. The idea that Jeffrey had known the whole time brought up more questions than Misha was prepared to address, and he let his mind drift while Jeffrey held him tight.

* * *

Flung against the mattress, Misha's body bounced awkwardly before he was able to scramble up to his knees.

“Don't you dare get off this bed,” John snapped at him, and Misha shut his eyes tightly against the onslaught. A stinging slap across his face jolted his awareness back to John's fury.

“You look at me when I'm talking to you. I've had enough of your bullshit for today.”

Bringing his eyes up to stare at John's hands working his belt buckle open, Misha whimpered, “Don't...”

“Don't start with me. You had your chance to have a nice evening with everyone else, and what did you do?”

Misha didn't answer. In reality, he couldn't remember what he had done. All he could think about was John's belt sliding from his waist like a venomous snake.

“Answer me,” he demanded, holding the belt off to his side, and Misha couldn't help shutting his eyes again and trying to pretend he was anywhere in the world except where he was. The strap fell sharply across his side as John wrenched his arm around. Curling into a protective ball, Misha tried to hold as still as he could.

“There are thirteen people living in this house, and you're the only one who's causing trouble.”

John was still talking, but Misha couldn't hear him through the fiery slash of the strap against his body. After what seemed like an eternity, it stopped, and John's words broke through.

“Every time you defy me, every time you talk back, every time you disobey, this is what's going to happen. Is that clear?”

Utterly defeated and unable to move, Misha said nothing.

“Get up.” John grabbed Misha's hair and jerked him upright. “Look at me.”

Misha looked up into John's face and instead saw Jeffrey, whose spiteful expression loomed over him as he was grabbed painfully by the shoulders.

“Is. That. Clear.” Jeffrey spat out the words into Misha's face, punctuating each one with a sharp shake of Misha's upper body.

Misha bolted upright in bed, his shoulders still sore where Jeffrey had gripped him too hard in the dream. He pulled his knees to his chest and hugged them, then looked warily around the room. Everything was peaceful and quiet. Everything except Misha.

* * *

A clatter from downstairs woke Jeff from a comfortable sleep. “Did you hear that?” he asked Jensen, who turned from him, burying his face in the pillow with groan. “I think Misha's out of his room.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Jensen grumbled into the pillowcase.

Jeff sighed and pulled himself out of bed. Walking downstairs, he felt a draft, and soon found the patio door left open to the night air. As warm as Los Angeles was during the day, it got cold at night, and he grabbed a jacket before heading outside.

Misha was crouched on the far side of the back yard in a tee shirt and sweat pants, fiddling with the ivy covering the brick wall that bordered Jeff's property. Despite his lack of appropriate clothing, Misha didn't seem to mind the temperature.

“What are you doing out here?”

Whirling around at the the sound of Jeff's voice, Misha rose so suddenly Jeff's own head spun. “There was an assassin trying to get you, and I was trying to lead him away so he couldn't hurt you.”

“Misha...” He'd thought they'd made a breakthrough on the lying earlier in the night. He wasn't sure what to say in the face of such a blatant fabrication. The boy was clearly terrified, and calling him on the deception was only going to make it worse.

“Your life was in danger, and Jensen's,” Misha supplied anxiously.

Jeff rubbed his hand across his face. He was cold and tired and just wanted to get back into his warm bed. “Let's get you back inside.”

“But I don't want to go back there,” Misha mumbled toward the ground as he ground bits of ivy between his fingers. “I want to go home.”

“Back to John's house?” Jeffrey wasn't surprised. No matter how horrible it had been with John, it had still been home to Misha for almost a decade.

Misha shook his head. “I have another house where all my real family is from before I got kidnapped, and they miss me and think about me every day, and they're still looking for me to bring me back.”

Resisting the urge to take Misha in his arms, Jeff replied, “We want you here, too.”

The words were supposed to be comforting, but Misha burst into tears, his body convulsing with the force of his sobs. Unable to resist any further, Jeffrey reached out to hold him, but Misha flinched away violently.

“What's wrong, baby?”

“Nothing, I just hate everything. Stop being nice to me. I hate it,” Misha snapped, flinging the last bits of ivy down to the ground then curling over with his head in his hands.

“Please come inside. It's cold out here.” Jeffrey reached out again, and this time Misha let him, burying his head in Jeff's neck even as he resisted verbally.

“No, I can't sleep because you won't give me the right medicine and I only like my real family, not you,” Misha complained, but let himself be gently guided back inside. The halfhearted tirade continued as Misha was led upstairs and back to his room. Jeffrey wondered what sort of medication John had been giving him. The doctor had warned that he might have a dependency on sleeping pills, apparently not uncommon in these types of cases. Jeffrey had been at once reassured and horrified that Misha's situation was common enough to have a type of case at all.

When they reached the bedroom door, Misha shied away. “Don't lock me in.”

“I won't, baby. Do you want me to come in with you?”

Misha nodded, and Jeff sat them both down on the edge of the bed. He gently rubbed Misha's neck, then ran his hands across the boy's shoulders and down his arms.

“Your hands are freezing.”

“Sorry.”

Jeffrey pulled Misha's fingers up to his lips and kissed them, warming them against his face until he saw Misha's look of concern.

“What is it?”

Misha bit his lip and stared at the floor. “I don't want to fuck this up,” he finally mumbled.

“You won't. I promise.”

With an inscrutable expression, Misha nodded. Whether it was intended as agreement or an insistence that Misha would, indeed, ruin the situation, Jeffrey didn't know, but it was too late and he was too tired to continue the conversation. He kissed Misha's fingers one last time and stood.

“Get some sleep, Misha.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jeffrey did a double take at the honorific. “Was that too bossy for you?”

“No, sir,” Misha replied, burrowing under the covers.

It was a conversation for another day. Jeffrey wished Misha good night and headed back to his own waiting bed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been almost a month. I've had personal stuff and I wasn't able to work on this as much as I wanted. I'm trying my best, thanks!

Jeff checked his phone again as Chris deftly weaved them through the evening traffic. He was going to be late for dinner with Jensen and Misha, after completely missing dinner the previous two nights. He couldn't do that to Jensen again, especially after the promise he'd made the night before. The fact that Jensen hadn't texted him yet was worrying Jeff, who didn't want to put too much pressure on him.

Jensen had been incredible so far, introducing Misha to his friends at the clubhouse and showing him around, but Jeff didn't want Jensen taking on too much responsibility, especially while balancing his coursework. While Jensen didn't exactly need the degree he was earning, Jeff hoped he'd see it through to the end.

They pulled into the driveway just as the clock turned to seven. Jeffrey jumped out of the car, expecting to see Jensen waiting for him at the door. When his boy didn't appear, Jeff fished his keys from his pocket and let himself inside.

The house smelled of lasagne and garlic bread. Jeff poked his head into the dining room, but the boys had apparently been waiting for him. He was headed toward the back of the house when Jensen's voice rang out from the den.

“I'm going to kill you, Misha! You're so dead!”

The exclamation was followed by unintelligible shouting from Misha. Jeffrey practically ran the rest of the way to the den, only to find the boys blithely laughing on the sofa and clutching at the game controllers.

“You're playing video games?”

Misha jumped out of his seat and dropped his controller like a hot potato at the sound of Jeffrey's voice. “Jensen said we could!”

Looking askance at Misha's willingness to throw him under the bus, Jensen paused the game. “We _can_ ,” he said. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing.” Jeff reached out for him, and Jensen came obediently into his arms for a kiss. “I heard yelling.”

“We were playing Call of Duty.”

“I see.” He kissed Jensen again, then looked over to see Misha staring uncertainly at the floor. “Were you having fun?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jensen rolled his eyes, and Jeff worried that Misha's idiosyncrasies might be fraying at Jensen's nerves after being stuck in the house with him for so long.

“Everything okay?” he asked softly, and Jensen nodded.

“I'm just hungry,” Jensen said, leaning into Jeff's shoulder. “You're late.”

“Sorry.” Jeff pulled Jensen close and ran his hand down Jensen's back. “Let's eat.”

Jeff kept his arm around Jensen's shoulders as they walked back to the dining room with Misha trailing behind them. It had taken a couple days for Misha to get used to the fact that he was expected to eat in the dining room with Jeffrey and Jensen. Come to think of it, it had taken him a couple of days to realize that he was expected to come out of his bedroom at all. Jeff still wasn't sure what Misha was doing in his room all day, though he had a suspicion that the boy spent a significant time napping, given his tendency to roam around at night. At least that had stopped, ever since Jeff had made it clear to Misha that he was to come to Jeff's room rather than sneak around in the dark. The past few nights Jeff had been woken up by Misha's silent entry into his room and bed. Silent now that Jeff had figured out to just shush the outlandish explanations and give Misha what he wanted. What Misha appeared to want most nights was to sleep precariously balanced on the edge of the mattress, as far away as he could get from Jeff and Jensen without falling off the bed altogether, but Jeff wasn't complaining as long as they were all safe and accounted for and nothing was being set on fire.

The food was on the table by the time they sat down, and Mark was nowhere to be seen, probably already on the road back to his own home and family. 

“So what did you boys do today?” Jeff asked, scooping out a serving of lasagne for each of them, then one for himself.

Misha looked over at Jensen, who had taken to speaking for both of them. “I had class this morning, then we hung and out played basketball and video games and stuff.” He took a bite of garlic bread, then quickly added, “And I studied.”

“What about you, Misha? What did you do while Jensen was at class?”

Chewing the inside of his lip, Misha considered the question. “I studied, too, sir” he said toward his plate.

“Really? I was hoping you might have gone out in the yard some more. I know you like it out there.”

Misha finally looked up at him. “Did Jensen tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“He said I can have a vegetable garden there, and that you desperately need it because those vegetables would taste better and have more vitamins than the ones in the store and be cheaper than buying them. He already promised me that you would say yes, and if you say no and break his promise he'll probably be devastated. So I guess you can say no if you want, but Jensen will be really upset, and you and Jensen might run out of money and die from lack of nutrition.”

Jeff paused, feeling the eyes of both his boys on him. He knew that saying yes at this point was reinforcing the lying, but he couldn't help himself when Misha seemed so desperate. He wished he could talk to Traci again, but until Misha was a registered member of the household, any request for psychological counseling or advice would probably put a hold on the process. They just had to wait it out a few more days.

“Yeah, a vegetable garden sounds great.”

Misha visibly relaxed at Jeff's words, opening up with excitement. “I'm going to make the best vegetables for you, Jeffrey. You're going to love them. You can tell me all your favorites and I'll grow them for you.”

“Thanks, baby.” Jeffrey nudged Jensen under the table, then smiled his gratitude over to him. Jensen smiled back before returning to his lasagne. Jeffrey resolved, not for the first time, to make it home for dinner more often.

* * *

After dinner, Jeff knew he should probably go to his office to work, but the hopeful look on Jensen's face when he asked whether they could all watch a DVD together was just too much. Jeff settled down in an armchair with his laptop while Jensen and Misha flipped through the DVDs.

They decided on _The Matrix_ , not one of Jeff's favorites, but something he was willing to have playing in the background while he read over the latest reports he hadn't gotten to in the office. He was actually able to read them without feeling like he was neglecting Jensen, too, with Misha there to keep Jensen company. 

Jeffrey was soon so engrossed in his files that he almost didn't hear the argument brewing beside him.

“Just push the triangle!”

“That's what I'm doing!”

“No you're not. Just let me do it.”

Jensen made a grab for the remote control, but Misha snatched it away just in time, then, right as Jeffrey was about to say something, whacked it soundly across Jensen's nose. Jensen's hands flew to his face as Jeff jumped out of his chair.

“Are you okay?” Jeff tried to get a look at Jensen's nose, crouching down beside him.

“It slipped out of my hands,” Misha explained from behind him. “I have a congenital disorder in my hand and I c-”

Jeff turned around, his stare cutting Misha off before he even started talking. “It was _not_ an accident. You hit him on purpose.”

“No, I-”

“I don't want to hear it, Misha. Go upstairs,” he ordered, vaguely gratified by the desperate expression on Misha's face. The boy was grasping at mental straws, and when he opened his mouth to protest, Jeff cut him off sharply. “No. Go upstairs. To your room. Do not come out until tomorrow.”

Misha stood frozen for a few seconds, then turned around and practically ran up the staircase. Jeff turned back to Jensen and gently pried his hands from his face. There was a little blood, but he seemed to be doing okay, more startled than injured.

“I'm okay,” Jensen assured him, shaking off Jeff's ministrations. 

Kissing Jensen's temple before pulling back, Jeff smiled regretfully. “I'm sorry, baby. Just try to remember that when he acts out like that, it's probably because someone else has treated him as bad or worse.”

Jensen looked up at him, not at all comforted by his words. “You say that like I haven't spent ten times as much time with him as you have.”

It wasn't like Jensen to complain, even if he had good reason. Jeffrey blinked in surprise. “I'm sorry. I haven't been around as much as I should be, and it hasn't been fair you.”

“That's not what I mean,” Jensen muttered. Jeffrey waited expectantly until he finally continued. “You just don't have to mediate our relationship.”

“Sweetheart, I'm responsible for you, and for Misha. It's my responsibility to make sure that no one hurts you, and that he doesn't hurt anyone else.”

Jensen picked up the remote control and started the movie. “Okay. You better go talk to him. He's probably really upset.”

“I can't talk to him right now because I'm talking to you.” Jeff turned off the television and pulled Jensen into his arms. “And he should feel upset after hitting you like that.”

“He's probably freaking out right now. He already would have apologized if you hadn't made such a big deal out of it.”

Jeffrey frowned, wondering how often this had happened in the past few days for Jensen to have such intimate knowledge of how it would have played out had Jeff not been there. “Jensen, it _is_ a big deal. I'm not going to allow him, or anyone else for that matter, to bring violence into this house. Let's watch something together and I'll talk to him tomorrow.”

“Will you please just go talk to him now so that he doesn't have a nervous breakdown?”

“One night is not going to kill him,” Jeff responded, dropping another kiss on Jensen's temple.

“Fine, whatever. Re-traumatize him. I'm going to bed,” Jensen snapped, brushing off Jeff's arms and standing to walk away.

“Jensen!” Jeff jumped up after him. 

Jensen turned to stare churlishly back at Jeff. “What?”

His tone was skirting the edge of open defiance, and Jeff had had enough. “I'm very happy that you feel protective of Misha, but that does not mean that you get to dictate to me how I run this household. You are nineteen years old, and you are not in charge here. Is that clear to you?”

Keeping a stern gaze fixed on Jensen, Jeffrey waited for a response. When nothing but a sullen glare toward the floor was forthcoming, he prompted, “Jensen?”

Finally, Jensen took a breath to spit out, “You never used to yell at me like that!”

Jeff sighed. He hadn't been yelling, and part of him wanted to point out that Jensen had never given him this sort of attitude before. He wasn't even sure that was true, though. Moreover, what he'd said had been right. Jensen _was_ only nineteen, and he _wasn't_ in charge of the household. It was Jeffrey's responsibility to set the tone, and his responsibility to make sure that things didn't escalate.

He was also starting to realize just how much pressure Jensen had been under trying to hold everything together while Jeffrey was gone. He was almost certain that he'd be hiring more staff to help out, but that was something else that was going to have to wait until Misha's paperwork came through. Until then, he was going to have to make sure Jensen's needs weren't falling through the cracks. 

“I'm sorry I was so harsh. I know this hasn't been easy for you.”

Jensen's brow furrowed at the apology, “You think I can't handle anything.”

“That's not true.”

“Yes, it is. You don't respect me. You treat me like I'm still fifteen years old.”

“Sweetheart, I'm having a really tough time understanding how Misha hitting you has turned around into me not respecting you.”

“It's not about Misha.” Jensen blew air through his teeth in exasperation. “Well, maybe it kind of is. I don't know. I just wish you didn't still think of me as a kid.”

“Come here, Jensen.” Jensen grudgingly walked forward just enough for Jeff to rest his hands on Jensen's shoulders. “I respect you. I don't take care of you because I think you can't do it yourself. I do it because it's my responsibility, no matter how old you are.”

As Jeff gently squeezed his shoulders, Jensen relaxed enough for Jeff to pull him into a hug. They stood there for a while until Jensen spoke, his breath hot on Jeff's collarbone. “Do you like the way Misha calls you 'sir' all the time?”

“Not especially, but I think he might be upset if I asked him to stop.”

It seemed to be enough for Jensen, who rested his head on Jeffrey's shoulder and finally returned the hug. “He asked me today how you punished me.”

“Did you explain to him that we don't have that kind of relationship?”

“It's in my contract that you can, right?”

Pausing, Jeffrey turned the question over in his head. It had been in the original contract the lawyers and Jensen's aunt had worked out for them, a standard part of any agreement that made one party legally responsible for the other's actions, and it had never been an issue. Jensen hadn't even bought it up at the renegotiations when he turned eighteen. Jeff wondered why it was suddenly a concern. “Sweetheart, I think Misha's worried that I'm going to beat him, and that's certainly not in your contract.”

“But it was in his?”

“I don't want you worrying about that.” In fact, it was still in Misha's contract with Jeffrey. In all the rush to get the paperwork submitted, Jeffrey had simply taken over the contract that John had signed years ago. It leaned a lot more in Jeffrey's favor than his contract with Jensen did, and in a bizarre legal twist, it was a lot easier for Jeff to push the paperwork through as it stood with a simple name change rather than to negotiate more rights for Misha. While Jeff felt a small twinge of guilt at how far the agreement skewed toward him, expedience had won out in the end. They could renegotiate later, if Misha wanted, and in the meantime Jeff could operate on his own recognizance. He certainly treated Jensen a lot better than he was technically required to.

Jeffrey ran his hand up Jensen's back and scraped his fingernails across the nape of Jensen's neck, a comfort spot he'd discovered not long after Jensen had moved in, when the boy was still missing his old home and grieving the loss of his parents. Jensen responded as he always did, melting further into Jeff's hold.

“I'm sorry about before,” Jensen mumbled.

“I just want you to be happy, baby.”

It was something he said enough that Jensen barely heard it anymore. “I know.”

“Good. Now how about that movie?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Jeffrey pulled Jensen down onto the couch with him and they started the movie while Jeffrey's laptop lay forgotten a few feet away.

* * *

The sound of the door creaking open pulled Jeff out of the light sleep he'd been enjoying. He was unsurprised to find Misha standing in the doorway. What did surprise him, though, was that Misha stayed there, rather than silently creep over to the bed as he usually did.

“What are you doing?”

“It's past midnight,” Misha stated, as if that explained why he was hovering in the open doorway.

It was 12:02, in fact, according to the clock on Jeff's nightstand. Long past the time when Jeff preferred unconsciousness to cryptic conversations. “Why are you still awake?” 

“You said I had to stay in my room until tomorrow, and now it's tomorrow.”

“Oh.” The pieces began to fit together in Jeffrey's sleep befuddled brain. He lifted the edge of the duvet in invitation, and Misha slid in, positioning himself right underneath Jeffrey's arm. Jeffrey let it curl around Misha's waist, grateful that the matter was settled so easily. He was just falling back into sleep when Misha's soft voice dragged him back to consciousness.

“Are you going to punish me?”

“I don't know yet,” he answered honestly. He'd thought about it during the movie, what would be the best approach with Misha. He had to ensure that Misha wasn't going to hurt Jensen while he was gone, but he didn't feel entirely comfortable punishing Misha for something he might not be able to control. He wasn't even convinced it would help. 

“What are you going to do to me?”

“Probably nothing. Now go to sleep.” He rubbed Misha's arm in an attempt to lull him quiet.

“Are you going to whip me?”

“No.”

“Are you going to let Jensen whip me?”

“Of course not, Misha. Nobody's going to hurt you.” Jeff was awake enough that he realized he wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon. “You can ask one more, and then you need to go to sleep.”

Misha curled in on himself, twisting the sheets between his fingers. Jeff wished he could see his face, but Misha was stubbornly turned away. Instead, he waited until Misha worked up the courage to finally whisper, “Will you send me away?”

“No, baby. I can't send you away. This is your home now. You belong here.” Illustrating his point, Jeffrey tightened his hold on Misha's waist.

Misha nodded, then twisted in Jeff's grasp. At first Jeff thought he was trying to pull away, but he soon realized Misha was settling in more comfortably, pressing his body firmly into Jeff's chest. Misha took a few deep breaths in his new position, then said, “I'm sorry I hit Jensen.”

“Thank you, but I'm not the one you hit. Make sure you talk to Jensen tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir,” Misha replied, burrowing further into him. Then, just as Jeff was drifting off to sleep, so soft that he thought he might be dreaming it, “I love you, sir.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for your patience, and especially thanks to firesign and rogue, for their beta help, cheer leading, and all around awesomeness.
> 
> I'm looking at this thinking that it seems so _short_ after all the time and effort I put into it, but I tually a little longer than the previous ones, so there's that at least. Until next time! :)

After three days of blaming his inability to study on Misha's constant interruptions, Jensen was surprised to discover that it was just as distracting to have Misha holed up quietly in his room. He knew he should use the peace and quiet to get some reading done, but he couldn't stop thinking about Misha's pained expression as he'd flown up the stairs the day before. Disgusted with himself, Jensen threw his course pack down and walked up to Misha's bedroom.

His soft knock was answered with an even softer “Yeah?” and he opened the door to find Misha fully dressed and sitting on his bed. The room was in perfect order, though there wasn't much to be out of place. In fact, it looked more like a showroom at IKEA than an actual space where someone lived. Jensen wondered how long it had taken the various gifts from Jeff to fill up his own bedroom.

“Hey,” he said, and Misha looked guiltily down at the bedspread. “What's up?”

Silence hung uncomfortably as Misha traced patterns in the fabric. “I'm sorry I hit you yesterday,” he finally answered.

“Yeah, I know.”

Jensen must not have looked very forgiving, because Misha just continued to stare at the sheets as if he were trying to memorize the thread count. “Do you want to hit me back?”

“No!” Jensen snapped, then softened his tone down to an irritated mutter. “I want to hit John.”

“John?”

“Yes! He's not even here, and he's still ruining things for us.” Jeff had warned Jensen against saying anything bad about John, but Jensen was not in the mood to do the bastard any favors. “It's like you have to try ten times as hard as everyone else, and it's still not enough.”

“I'll try twenty times as hard.” Misha looked up at him earnestly.

“You shouldn't have to. You should just get to hang out and have fun and not have to be sorry all the time.”

“I'm so-” The irony of his apology registered on Misha's face mid-word, and he bit his lip in consternation, a bright red blush popping up on his cheekbones. Jensen snorted, and Misha, realizing that he was in on the joke, and not the butt of it, relaxed. “You're really not mad at me?”

“No. I still want to pop John one, though.”

Misha looked almost distraught at the prospect, or maybe just confused. Several conflicting emotions flit across his face, and Jensen braced himself for the string of lies and fantasy that usually surrounded any conversation that hit too close to home. Instead, Misha jumped up and kissed him full on the lips.

Stunned, Jensen let it happen. He let Misha's lips move across his own, then let Misha's tongue part his lips. Soon, as his tongue was sliding past Misha's and his hands were finding their way under Misha's shirt, he had to admit to himself that he was a full participant. He pulled up for air, reminding himself that he couldn't do this. It was incredibly wrong. On the other hand, it was just a kiss, and a kiss by itself wasn't really a violation of anything.

“I want to suck you,” Misha whispered into his ear.

Swearing internally, Jensen knew what he had to do. He had to turn Misha down. He had to tell him that they needed to wait until his paperwork came though, that until he was a registered member of the household, they couldn't do this.

“No,” he said, as Misha breathed hotly against his neck. “Not here. There's no lock on your door. We have to go to my room.”

Misha was eager enough to make his way over to Jensen's bedroom, and they both fell onto the bed. It was strange, having someone other than Jeff touch him, but Jensen's body didn't have any complaints. Somehow he found himself naked and lying on top of the bedspread as Misha bent over his erection. The whole thing had happened so fast that he wasn't even sure how he'd gotten there, and then Misha swallowed him whole and all thoughts left him as he arched up into the hot wetness.

It was unmistakably different from being with Jeff. For one thing, Jeff had only ever kept Jensen's cock in his mouth for a little while before heading onto the main attraction. Misha didn't seem to have any qualms about blowing Jensen as long as possible, and he was in serious danger of Jensen shooting his load right down his throat. He tried to pull out before it was too late, but Misha grabbed him tightly, steadied him, and held on while he shuddered through the orgasm.

They lay there for a moment, before Misha pulled off him and Jensen felt the slow creep of guilt and apprehension overcome him. 

“We can't tell Jeff.”

“Why not?” Misha sat up straight on the bed, suddenly much more composed than Jensen. The shiny wetness around his lips was the only evidence that anything had just happened, and even that was quickly wiped away.

“We just can't. We're not supposed to do this until your paperwork comes through.”

“Oh.”

“It's just a stupid law,” Jensen assured him. “It's just in case the paperwork doesn't go through, but it will.”

“What if it doesn't?”

“It will, and then we can tell Jeff. We just have to keep it a secret until then.” Misha seemed unhappy, and Jensen realized he should probably at least offer to reciprocate. “Do you want me to do you?”

Misha shook his head and fidgeted. “I didn't know we weren't supposed to.”

The discomfort was infectious, and Jensen started to feel his nakedness more keenly than before. He reached over for the clothes he could find and started to dress. “It doesn't matter. Jeff doesn't mind, but we just can't throw it in his face by telling him.” Seeing Misha's dubious expression, he added, “You won't get in trouble. He's not going to hurt you.”

Misha's face darkened. “I'm not as pathetic as you think I am.” 

“I don't think you're pathetic.”

“You think I'm a pathetic idiot and I'm scared of everything all the time.”

“I don't! I just...” The previous evening's conversation with Jeff was painfully prominent in Jensen's memory, and he wondered if he'd been giving Misha too little credit. “It's not like that.”

“I made him hit me. You think I just sat there like an idiot, but I made him madder and madder on purpose so he'd know he was an asshole when he saw what he did.”

“He is an asshole,” Jensen insisted, unsure what to think of what Misha was telling him. Misha was barely even looking at him, staring dully at the far wall.

“He was nice to me after. One time he got me a stereo.”

“That's really sick,” Jensen replied without thinking. Then, after realizing what he had said, he added, “I mean he is, not you.”

Misha didn't seem to mind. He sat silently for a while, breathing heavily through his nose with his jaw clenched tightly. Finally, he looked up, the trauma seemingly forgotten. “Now you have to tell me a secret.”

The only secrets Jensen had were secrets, meaning he didn't tell them to anyone. He thought it over for a while. “I'm a business major.”

“That's not a secret.”

“Jeff thinks I'm an art history major,” he explained. “I mean, I'm that too, but I'm a double major in business, too. Jeff wanted me to switch to art history because... “ Jensen paused, remembering the conversation, and Jeff's cajoling tone as he basically told Jensen he wasn't smart enough to study business. “I don't know. Probably because he didn't think I could do it.”

“But you can, right?” Misha's eyes held a conspiratorial gleam.

Leaning in, Jensen smiled. “I'm on the dean's list.”

“You should tell him!”

“I'm going to wait until graduation, and then just sit with the business majors. They call us up to the stage by major, and he's going to wonder why I didn't go up with the art history people, and then when I go up with business majors, he's not going to know what to think.” He let the scene play out in his head. It was stupid. He knew it would probably never happen. Jeff would probably get called away at the last minute for a business trip and miss the ceremony, anyway. Still, it was fun to think about. “I wish I could see his face.”

“I'll take a picture for you.”

Jensen laughed, adding in the image of Misha taking a flash photo of Jeff to his internal fantasy.

“Jensen! Misha! Lunchtime!” Mark's voice cut into the moment, and Jensen started to roll off the bed and to his feet when Misha caught his arm.

“Your secret's safe with me, Jensen.”

Their eyes met, and Jensen was struck with an unexpected sense of camaraderie. “Yeah, I know.”

* * *

Jeffrey was suspicious. Misha could tell. He'd already asked three times what was going on with Jensen and Misha, and he kept giving them strange looks from over his laptop. He'd even asked whether they'd had a fight while he was gone.

It had been fun having a secret with Jensen, like they were Mission Impossible spies that no one suspected, but now that Jeffrey was back home, Misha wanted him to be in on the secret, too. Instead, there was an invisible wall between them that held the secret in. Misha didn't like it. Part of him wished that Jeffrey would just guess what they did and punish them so that it would be over, but mostly he just wished he could go back to when it had never happened.

When Jeffrey called him over to look at something on the computer, Misha walked over carefully, making sure it wasn't a trap. If Jeffrey wasn't a spy with them, he was probably their enemy, and Misha didn't want to be too close when the truth was revealed. The wall slid into place between them as Misha sat down.

“It's a present for you from my mom,” Jeffrey explained, pointing at the laptop. The screen showed a digital video camera, and Misha's breath caught. He'd be able to make his own movies of Jeffrey and Jensen, and then if they stopped liking him, he could play back the times when they all had fun together. “She wanted to know whether you would like it. Don't tell her I told you what it was.”

Hearing the secret, Misha suddenly realized that Jeffrey thought that they were on the same spy team. Jeff couldn't see the invisible wall like Misha could, and he didn't even know it was there. Jensen was reading his college books and didn't notice that Misha was trapped inside the wall with not enough air.

“Misha, what's the matter?” Jeffrey reached out to touch Misha's back, and the invisible wall closed in tight like a scuba diver suit onto his skin. It itched him all over and he squirmed around trying not to get too suffocated. Finally, when he couldn't breathe anymore, he spoke up. 

“I'm a spy.”

“What?”

“I'm a spy and I have a scuba diver suit on my skin and even when you touch me you don't touch me.”

“Do you not want me to touch you?”

“I do, but you can't because of my scuba diver suit.”

Jeffrey sighed and reached both arms around Misha and hugged him, then kissed the side of Misha's face. The kiss went all the way through the invisible wall and landed straight on Misha's skin right next to his eye. He was scared the secret would get out, and he twisted up his face, keeping his eyes closed tight. He didn't move, waiting for when it was safe, for when Jeffrey would stop saying his name and trying to read all his secrets from inside his mind.

“Jensen, if there's something you need to tell me about what went on today, now's the time,” Jeff said.

Misha waited for Jensen to tell Jeffrey that nothing happened, but instead Jensen told Jeff not to be mad, then told him the story of how they became spies that morning. With Jeffrey in on the secret, the invisible wall came crumbling down along with Misha's spy identity. When Jeffrey asked him whether that's what happened, Misha nodded.

Jeffrey's mouth was an angry slash line across his face, and Misha wanted to apologize, but he couldn't. Instead, Jensen was apologizing enough for both of them. The conversation was intense and frighteningly calm, and Misha stayed out of it. Finally, a cup of water was pressed into his hand. He knew he was expected to drink it, so he did. It didn't taste like medicine.

“Feel better?” Jeffrey asked him, and Misha nodded, lying again without saying a word. Jeffrey's mouth wasn't so angry anymore, so it was worth it.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Misha shook his head. He didn't want to talk about anything. He just wanted everything to be over. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Okay, baby.”

Misha left before Jeffrey could change his mind. He ran up to his own bathroom and made sure to lock the door, then turned on the water so he couldn't hear anything from outside. Leaning heavily against the door, he wondered how everything had fallen apart so quickly. Jeffrey had promised him he wouldn't fuck everything up, but it was a promise no one would be able to keep. Misha's fingernails dug into his palms as he clenched his fists tight against the reality of the situation.

* * *

Jensen couldn't meet Jeff's eyes. He tried to form an apology, but the words stuck in his throat. He waited for Jeff to chew him out so he could go back to his room and have this whole evening be over.

“You realize that what you did was against the law, and that those laws are there to protect Misha.”

“He's the one who wanted to!” The words were out of his mouth before Jensen even realized he was defending himself. It was exactly what Jensen hadn't wanted to do, not after seeing Misha's panic attack, but somehow he couldn't stop himself from finding a way to blame Jeff for everything.

“He doesn't know what he wants right now. That's why we have to-”

“That's what you thought about me, and it wasn't true.”

“This is not about you, Jensen.”

“I know!” Jensen had no idea where the anger was coming from, but it was threatening to overwhelm him. He could see Jeff holding back his own tongue, and Jensen wanted nothing more for Jeff to say something, give Jensen something real to be angry about. Instead, Jeff sat patiently as the fight slowly drained out of Jensen, leaving him ashamed and out of sorts.

“I'm going to take Misha to work with me tomorrow,” Jeff finally said.

“No! You can trust me.”

“I do trust you, sweetheart, but you need a break from all this.”

It was reasonable, kind, and yet somehow completely unsatisfying. The worst part was that Jensen had no idea what he actually wanted.

“Besides, my mom's coming into town tomorrow, and I'd really appreciate it if you could go with Christian to pick her up.”

“I already told you I would,” Jensen muttered.

Jeff's face tightened, and Jensen wondered whether he'd gone too far. It felt good to know he was at least having some sort of impact, regardless.

“Thank you,” Jeff said.

The words hung in the air, making Jensen feel like a child whose tantrum was being ignored by a disapproving parent. He couldn't tell whether he was mad at Jeff, at himself, or just the general dynamic of the situation. “I have to study.”

At Jeff's nod, Jensen started back toward his books, but Jeff's voice stopped him. “Sweetheart, I don't want you avoiding me over this. Come to bed tonight.”

Ignoring the command, Jensen picked up his books to take back to his own room. Jeff didn't say anything else, certain that Jensen would do as Jeff asked. Truth be told, Jensen was certain as well. It was too hard to resist Jeff's persistent kindness, even when Jensen knew how uncomfortable the conversation was going to be.

* * *

Jeff sat on the sofa wondering how badly he'd miscalculated the situation. He'd known Jensen had been unhappy with the amount Jeff had been out on business in the past several months, but there was obviously something else going on. He didn't know what to do about it, though, if Jensen wouldn't talk to him. To top it all off, he had another boy who had probably set up camp in the bathroom at this point. Jeff pushed himself up and walked up to Misha's room. The bathroom door was locked, and there was no reply to Jeff's knock. 

“Please open the door and come out.”

“I can't. I-”

“Please open the door and come out,” Jeff repeated gently, cutting off Misha's protest. He'd found the technique on the Internet, one of the easier ways do deal with the wild stories that Misha tended to spin. It was working surprisingly well, even if Jeff felt like a broken record.

“But-”

“Please open the door and come out.”

“I have-”

“Please open the door and come out.”

The lock clicked, and the door swung open slowly. Misha shuffled out, his head bent low, bangs obscuring his face.

“Thank you.” Jeff resisted the urge to reach out to him. Misha was especially jumpy after being coaxed from a hiding place.

“I threw up,” he whispered.

“I'm sorry. Did you brush your teeth?”

Misha nodded to the floor at his feet.

“Why don't you finish getting read for bed?”

Walking to the closet, Misha started to pull off his clothes. He hesitated before tossing them into the hamper. It had been difficult for him to let the clothes out of is sight, even for the short time it took to wash them, and even now Jeff could see the effort it took him to trust that his things would be returned to him. He stepped into a pair of sleep pants and pulled a tee shirt from the shelf, then looked up to Jeff for guidance. 

“Do you want me to wear the shirt?”

“It's up to you, baby. Whatever's the most comfortable.”

Misha clutched the shirt to his chest. “I think you should put some more medicine on my back.”

The cream was gone, and Misha's back looked fine. Jeff toyed with the idea of faking it with some hand lotion, but it felt too much like a violation of the trust he was trying to build. “What if you lie down and I rub your back some?”

“Okay.”

Misha lay down, and Jeff sat beside him and began to rub small circles into his back. A few tiny bruises speckled the skin, but for the most part his back had healed perfectly. John had been careful not to leave any physical scars, at least.

The checklist of things that would make Misha more likely to talk ran through Jeff's mind, coaching him on the best ways to start the conversation: non-judgmental, open-ended, casual. The list went on.

“You seemed really upset today,” Jeff finally said.

“I'm sorry.”

“You're not in trouble.”

“What about Jensen?”

“Why do you ask? Do you want him to be?”

“No, he's my friend. I wanted to do something nice for him.” Misha rambled on, his voice taking on a strange quality as if it were echoing someone else. “I'm a great cock sucker. My mouth was made for it. It's the only thing I-”

Misha didn't finish the thought, but Jeff had heard the same and more just a few days ago from John, some inappropriate throw away line about how Misha's cock sucking lips were the only reason he'd kept him around for so long. At the time, Jeffrey had seen it as the same sort of locker room sexual bravado that had permeated his high school years. In light of Misha's reaction, it was taking on a more sinister tone. At a loss of what to do, Jeff continued to card his fingers through Misha's hair, scratching lightly at the scalp.

“How does that feel?”

“Good.”

“I'd like to spend the day with you tomorrow, but I'll need to take you with me to work. How does that sound to you?”

“Okay.” Misha sounded cautious.

“Is there something you wanted to ask me?”

Misha nodded slightly, but remained silent.

“What is it, baby?”

Shifting on the bed, Misha turned his face toward Jeff, but couldn't quite bring his eyes up to look at him. He took a few deep breaths. “One time, do you think we can eat breakfast together on the back patio?”

“Sure, baby. How about tomorrow morning?”

For a brief moment, Misha's face lit up like the Fourth of July. Quickly, though, his breath caught and he withdrew back into himself. Jeff put a hand on the side of his face. “What's the matter?”

“I don't want you to change your mind.”

Jeff brushed the hair out of Misha's eyes and looked down into them. His words would do nothing to convince Misha, so he leaned over softly kissed the boy's cheek. “Have a good night, sweetheart. I'll wake you up tomorrow for breakfast.”

* * *

By the time Jeff had finished brushing his teeth, Jensen was already in his bed. It was hours before Jensen would have normally gone to sleep, and Jeff quickly saw through the ruse. Jensen was trying to avoid a conversation by sneaking in while Jeff was in the bathroom.

Jeff climbed into bed and curled himself around him, kissing the shell of Jensen's ear.

“We've got to talk about this, baby.”

Jensen turned his head into the mattress. “There's nothing to talk about. I screwed up and I'm sorry. I didn't know he was going to freak out like that.”

“I know you didn't, and I don't want you blaming yourself for it. Misha's got a lot of things to work through.” Jeff sighed and rested his hand in Jensen's hair. “What I'm worried about is this tendency of yours to sneak around behind my back when you think you know better, instead of actually talking to me.”

“Okay, I'm sorry about that, too. I'm sorry about everything. If I could go back in time and tell him not to suck me off I would. I just...”

When Jensen didn't continue, Jeff turned him around until the two were face to face. Jensen looked utterly broken, and Jeff wanted nothing more than to gather him up and soothe him back together. Unfortunately, times like these were some of the few when Jensen would let his guard down, and Jeff knew that without the emotional breakdown, they'd probably be back where they'd started. He just wished Jensen could find a way to be honest that wasn't so painful.

“I'm a lot less concerned about the sex than I am that you asked Misha to lie to me about it. What kind of message does that send about our relationship?”

Jensen didn't answer, and Jeff didn't press him to, the answer already clear to both of them. Part of Jeff wanted to tighten the screws, to point out that Misha had thought that they were lying to avoid punishment, that if Jeff had found out, he would strip them both down and force them to lie on the bed while Jeff whipped them with a belt, keeping at it until enough welts appeared and they were in enough pain that Jeff's anger would be appeased. It wasn't a pretty picture, and Jeff couldn't bring himself to share it with Jensen.

“Sweetheart, I'm really trying to understand why you can't be honest with me. I don't remember ever giving you a reason to be scared of how I'd react. I don't think I've even been angry with you over anything after the fact.”

“Because you expect me to screw everything up anyway.”

Jeff drew back and looked at Jensen's face, which had opened up a bit more in his desperation. “That's not true,” he started, but Jensen was already continuing.

“Like today, when I told you what happened, you weren't surprised or angry or disappointed or anything. You're just like, 'Yeah, Jensen's a giant screw up so everything's normal. I better take Misha away before he screws everything up even more.'”

Stunned at the skewed version of the day's events, Jeff struggled to put his thoughts together. “Baby, that's not what I was thinking.”

“Then why act like that?”

Jeff turned the thought over in his head. Was Jensen actually hurt by the fact that Jeff forgave him so easily? The alternative seemed bleak, keeping track of each other's transgressions and measuring them up in periodic fights that did little to appease either's sense of justice. 

“I've seen so many of my friends' relationships with their boys degenerate into nasty power struggles, and I don't want that to happen to us. I love you so much, Jensen. I don't want to lose what we have.” Instead of finding comfort in the words, Jensen looked even more distraught. “What is it, sweetheart?”

Jensen shook his head. “You always act so perfect and then I feel even stupider.”

“Jesus, Jensen. I'm not perfect, and you don't have to be for me to respect you. I'm sorry I put too much pressure on you.”

“I can handle it!”

“No, Jensen, listen to me. When I was nineteen, and I was going to college, do you know what other responsibilities I had to deal with?” Jensen shrugged, unimpressed by the history lesson. “None. Absolutely none. And you can check with my mother tomorrow if you'd like, but I'm fairly sure I was not a perfectly behaved young man. Obviously, you're a better person than I am, because you're able to handle a lot more than I could.”

“Jeff...” Jensen's face held the same tired look it always did when Jeff tried to explain how incredible Jensen actually was.

“However, that does not give me license to pile inhuman pressure on you until you crack. I know that you're an adult now, but nineteen is not thirty-one, and I believe that we've both signed a legal document stating that I am responsible for your needs, but you are not responsible for mine. You're certainly not responsible for Misha, who I brought into this house without a full understanding of what he needed.”

Some part of the speech had reached Jensen, and he turned himself fully into Jeff's embrace. “I just want you to know that you can count on me. Sometimes it's like you think you need to do everything little thing for me, like I can't do anything right on my own. But I'm not like-” Jensen didn't need to say it. He was not like Misha. Jeff was starting to understand how Misha's appearance had catalyzed Jensen's own crisis. “I'm not like that.”

“I'm not asking you to need me. I'm just asking you to let me make things easier on you because I love you.”

Jensen nodded.

Jeff nudged him gently. “This is the part where you're supposed to say you love me, too.”

“You know I do.”

“I need to hear you say it. I need you, Jensen.”

“I love you.”

Jeff gave him just enough time to finish the sentence before covering his mouth in a kiss.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's been forever. I've been thinking about this story a lot, but I haven't been able to write for personal reasons. I am trying my best to keep on it, but I'm sorry to anyone who may have been frustrated with the lack of updates. This has not been betaed because I am too ashamed to contact those who offered a year ago. Please feel free to offer concrit, and I will do my best to improve this work. The most useful concrit for me usually consists of specific, concrete suggestions for improvement, rather than just telling me in general how it's not good enough. :D
> 
> Thanks for reading!

When the alarm woke Misha up the following morning, Jeffrey didn't try to sneak out of the bed like normal. Instead, he rubbed up and down Misha's arm to make sure he was awake, too, and reminded Misha that this was their special breakfast day, as if Misha would have forgotten.

Misha showered quickly, before the water had time to warm up, worried that Jeffrey might decide to skip their breakfast or leave without him if he took too long. Even though they were going out in public, Jeffrey hadn't told him what he had to wear, so he picked out his best outfit from the clothes that Jeffrey had given him. He didn't want Jeffrey to be embarrassed to drag him around all day. Office clothes were usually a real suit with a tie and jacket, but they hadn't gotten one for him yet, so he settled for some gray slacks and a blue Oxford shirt that Jensen had insisted made his eyes look like they would glow in the dark. He frowned at his sneakers, but pulled them on when he realized he didn't have a more appropriate alternative. Maybe Jeffrey would make him an express messenger and he'd need them.

When Misha finally got down to the patio, Jeffrey was already there with two trays of bagels, cream cheese, and strawberries. They chatted while they ate, Jeffrey telling him about his plans for the day at work. Misha made sure to sit up straight and listen to the important business information. He imagined that he could be a special adviser to Jeffrey in the business, and give him tips that could save the company. Everyone at the company would be excited to listen to all of his great ideas because they'd all get extra money from doing everything he suggested. It was probably the best breakfast Misha had ever had, even though Jeffrey burned one of the bagels in the toaster.

Later, as Christian drove them to Jeffrey's office, Misha played the events of the morning over in his mind, trying to burn them permanently into into his memory in case he needed them later. Jeffrey was looking at all the emails in his Blackberry, but Misha didn't have a Blackberry, so he just stared out the window at all the people, in case someone needed his help. Before the HRA, people had lived right there on the side of the street. That's what Misha's dad had told him, anyway, when he'd cried about having to move to John's house. Misha was lucky he wasn't living out on the street, with everyone else living one or two to a house, and the whole country filled up with houses that polluted up the air until birds fell dead out of the sky like rain. People always told Misha he was lucky when he felt the unluckiest.

They pulled up to a tall, shiny building, and a man dressed up like the Nutcracker opened the door so they could get out. Misha followed after Jeff, whose smile kept him closer than John's grip on his hair ever had. The elevator zipped them so fast that Misha's ears popped, and then they stepped out together, high enough that Misha could see the ocean when he looked out the window. 

“The ocean!” he cried, before he remembered not to embarrass Jeffrey in front of all the important work people.

“You haven't seen it before?”

“Not that one.”

At first, Misha thought he might have said something stupid, but Jeff put his hand on the small of Misha's back and said he wanted to introduce Misha around. They walked around like that, while Misha met everyone, with Jeff's hand sending secret messages about where he wanted Misha to go, in a language no one but the two of them could hear. Misha shook everyone's hand and did everything exactly right, and Misha could feel Jeff's hand silently telling him how proud he was.

Rob was the most important one, because he was Jeffrey's assistant and he had a second computer that Misha was going to do some crucial work on. Rob showed him Solitaire and Minesweeper and Firefox, but Misha wasn't an idiot. He knew how to use a computer.

He was in the middle of some Internet research when Rob asked him whether he wanted to go down to the Starbucks in the lobby and get some coffee for Jeffrey. As they went down together, Misha tried to act like Jensen would, so he didn't jump on the elevator to feel like he was flying. Suddenly, before he could stop it, a memory of doing just that washed over him: the flip-flop feeling of being suspended in the air, his brother laughing with him over the shared experience, and their mother looking down, exasperated and indulgent. Misha clenched his teeth against the vision, wiping her face from his mind's eye.

“Are you okay?” Rob was staring at him with concern, and Misha reminded himself of where and who he was.

“My ears popped.” It was the truth, even if it really wasn't.

“Yeah, it can take some getting used to.”

They rode the rest of the way in amiable silence. The doors opened before Misha was ready, and they made their way to the Starbucks. The line snaked around twice before trailing out the door.

“Ninety percent of my job is standing in line and waiting on hold,” Rob confided with a grin. “Pays as much as real work.”

Misha wondered what Jensen would say to that, and when he couldn't think of anything, he stared at the floor. Luckily for him, Rob's cell phone rang, and Misha was left to inch forward silently as Rob carried on his half of a conversation Misha wasn't invited to.

Rob didn't even stop talking on the phone while he ordered. Misha got a danish and a latte, just like Jensen had ordered for him at the hospital, and they brought the order back up to the office. The coffee was warm in his hands, and he remembered as he took a sip that he hadn't liked the taste at all.

“Do you want to take it in to him?” Rob asked.

“Okay.” It seemed like a trick for Misha to take the coffee in when really Rob had done most of the work, choosing and paying for it, but Misha was still shaken from the experience in the elevator, and he wanted to see Jeffrey's face again.

“Your hands are shaking, baby,” Jeffrey told him as he handed over the coffee.

“I didn't spill it,” Misha explained quickly, but Jeffrey was already holding his hand and drawing him in for a better look.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sorry I've been so busy. Do you want to hang out here for a while?”

“Yeah, but nobody's told me what my job is yet.”

Jeffrey looked confused for a second, and Misha told himself that Jeffrey was probably shocked that nobody had been using any of Misha's special skills that he'd been brought down here for. Misha vowed to work twice as hard so that he could make up for all the lost time. He would be a productivity genius and maybe get into the newspaper. “Let's see if Rob can get you set up with something.”

* * *

The special task was a pile of pencils. They might look normal to the untrained eye, but they had the company information printed on then, and they were integral to the time sensitive marketing strategy that everyone was depending on. That meant they were all depending on Misha getting them sharp enough in a timely manner. It was a thankless task, but Misha was undaunted. He was steadily nearing his goal and was close to completion when Rob's voice on speakerphone broke his concentration.

“I've got your mom on the line.”

Hearing Jeffrey take the call, Misha decided to set a productivity goal for himself. He would finish all the pencils by the time Jeffrey was off the phone, and then show them to Jeffrey at the end. He was probably the fastest sharpener they had ever had at the office, and he could be an efficiency expert for them on all sorts of projects. They would get bonuses from all the money Misha saved them, and he'd have a special office near Jeffrey's.

“Misha, stop that for a minute.” Jeffrey's voice cut through the strident groan of the electric pencil sharpener, and Misha looked down. He only had a handful of pencils left.

“I'm almost done,” Misha assured him, starting on the next pencil.

“Just for a minute, baby. I'm on the phone.”

Hearing the frustration in Jeffrey's voice, Misha ratcheted up his efforts. He was so close to finishing, and then he'd be able to show Jeffrey everything he had accomplished for the company.

“Misha, stop it!” Jeffrey snapped, and Misha froze. Everything in his mind came together before he could stop it: his mother's face, John's face, their voices and presence all converging onto Jeffrey until Misha couldn't tell who was trying to trick him anymore. While he was still trying to sort everything out, his hand picked up the pencil sharpener and hurled it across the office at Jeffrey's head. 

Misha watched in horror, willing it to miss its target. Swearing loudly into the phone, Jeffrey ducked just in time for the sharpener to sail past his head and explode against the wall, showering pencil shavings across the floor and desk.

A familiar thrill of fear ran through Misha. His heart pounded heavily as his body prepared itself for the fight sure to come. As Jeffrey stood, Misha noticed each twitch of Jeffrey's fingers, the various emotions flitting across his face, and the set of his shoulders. The hyper-awareness focused him, leaving him in the current moment and nowhere else, as his mind automatically weighed the benefits of running out the door against those of standing his ground.

The spell was broken when Rob rushed in asking what had happened. Misha squeezed his eyes shut and tried to imagine he was somewhere else, floating in darkness on a river where nobody knew where he was.

“Misha's not feeling well,” Jeffrey's voice said. “Do you think you could take him home so he could get some rest?”

The explanation threw Misha off, and he wondered whether that was really what had happened. Maybe he had gotten sick and imagined everything else. He opened his eyes, but the light cover of pencil shavings surrounding Jeffrey confirmed Misha's version of events.

Misha imagined Jeffrey grabbing him by the back of the collar and throwing him down into the mess, demanding that he clean it up. He imagined him backing Misha into a corner and whipping him with a belt until the pain took over everything. He imagined being grabbed and shaken and yelled at until the words became an endless blur of how worthless he was. Misha knew how to do all those things.

What Misha didn't know was how to be peacefully handed off to someone else while Jeffrey looked on with mild concern, as if a glass he didn't particularly care about had broken onto the floor. Misha imagined Rob was sweeping him up out of the way before he hurt somebody, and Misha wanted to fight, but it was really all he could do not to cry, and so he let Rob lead him gently down to the taxi stand. 

He only had one pencil left.

* * *

By the time they arrived at Jeffrey's house, Rob had given up on trying to talk to Misha. Instead, Misha used the silence to think about the day and figure out where everything had gone wrong. He wanted to blame Jeffrey for giving him a job and then not letting him do it, but he knew in his heart that it was his own fault. He wondered what Jeffrey thought of him now, and if he was going to tell Jensen what had happened.

Mark met them at the door, and Rob handed Misha over to him, parroting Jeffrey's explanation from the office. When Mark started to look him over, Misha stared down at his sneakers. Jensen had mentioned that Mark was more strict with his boys than Jeff was, and there was no telling whether he'd get mad at Misha for being sick when Jeffrey really needed him at work.

“What's the matter?” Mark asked, feeling at Misha's face with cool fingers.

“I had tonsillitis, so you better give me some ice cream.”

Stepping back, Mark looked him over one more time like Misha had come down with something much worse than tonsillitis, maybe the plague or Ebola. “Are you trying to ask me for something?”

Misha chewed on the inside of his lip. While Jeffrey and Jensen always seemed to know exactly what Misha wanted, Mark had to have everything spelled out for him. It made talking to him uncomfortable, and Misha wished Jensen were at home instead of off doing college stuff.

“Can I have some ice cream?”

“You may,” Mark said, and Misha followed him into the kitchen, scowling so that Mark would know how annoying he was.

Since it might be his last bowl of ice cream before Jeffrey changed his mind about him, Misha made sure it was a good one: cherry flavored with bits of cherry and chocolate inside, and more chocolate syrup on the top.

“Bad day at the office?” Mark asked, setting the bowl down on the kitchen island.

In lieu of answering, Misha climbed onto a stool and stuffed his mouth with as much ice cream as the spoon could hold.

“I'll take that as a 'Yes.'” Mark didn't seem troubled by Misha's irritation with him. He never did. If Misha were to choose an arch-nemesis, it might be Mark.

“I finished all the work early. I did ten people's work in half a day, and they were going to lay people off because I could do all the work so fast, so I came back and sacrificed my professional career so they could keep their jobs."

Mark ignored the explanation and started to wipe down counters that were already clean. “Finish that up, then go upstairs and get some rest. I'll make you some real lunch afterward.”

Sometimes Misha had to remind himself that he didn't have to do what Mark told him. Still, he ate the rest of the ice cream quickly and padded up to his room, slipping quietly under the covers. When Mark came by to ask whether he needed anything, he shook his head quickly and burrowed further under the down comforter. Sleeping in the day meant sleeping alone, so Misha imagined Jeffrey was there, running his fingers through Misha's hair and telling him what a great job he did. It didn't take long to fall asleep.

* * *

Jeff's mother wasn't hard to find in the empty terminal. Jensen had heard rumors that they were going to close Bob Hope Airport within the next few years,but for now it was the most convenient to their house, and much less confusing than LAX, which still had three terminals open, as well as a maze of roadway and security to navigate just to get to arrivals.

“Jensen!” Karen called from across the waiting area. She was trying to drag her rolling suitcase across the floor while rifling through her oversized handbag.

Jensen jogged over to grab the suitcase, and she pulled him in quickly for a one handed hug and peck on the cheek. “Thanks, sweetheart. I've got something for you in here.”

“You didn't have to bring me anything,” Jensen protested, drawing the suitcase back toward the baggage security check point.

Karen hummed her disagreement and continued to search the bag, finally pulling out a haphazardly wrapped box. “They made me unwrap it at security. Can you believe it? They have an machine that can see right through your clothes, and they didn't trust it to see through a piece of wrapping paper. Then when I got here, they ran it through a bomb detector. I thought they were going to turn the dogs on me.”

Jensen kept quiet, used to Karen's running commentary on the inconvenience of any sort of security protocol. Last year, he thought she was going to get them arrested when she overheard a TSA officer asking a group of tourists to hold their conversations in English inside the security area.

This time, though, she showed her ID and travel papers to the security officer without complaint as they cleared baggage security. “That's the fourth time they've checked my papers since we've been here,” She hissed at him once they were out the door. “Four times!”

“They've been cracking down since that human trafficking thing in April,” Jensen said absently, looking out for Christian, who was looping the airport while he waited.

“Well...” Karen cut off, though the look on her face said she still had plenty to say on the subject. “Oh, sweetheart, I forgot about your present.”

Jensen took the offered box as Christian pulled to the curb. After the bags were loaded and they were headed back to the 5, Jensen unwrapped his gift. It was a portable DVD player. Not a surprise, not since Jeff had specifically told him not to buy one earlier in the week, but still a pretty awesome present. He thanked her and she blew him off, already turning to Christian and asking him to take them to Canter's.

“I think Jeff wanted us to all eat together at home,” Jensen reminded her.

“And I would like to take my son in law out to dinner. You still like Canter's, don't you?”

“I guess.” Canter's had been one of his favorite restaurants when he'd fist moved out to LA to be with Jeff. In fact, it was first place they'd met, facing each other across the booth while penned in by the bodies of Karen and Jensen's aunt, respectively. He'd tried to let Jeff order for him, encouraged by the two women, until Jeff had finally stammered out that he didn't want to order something Jensen didn't want. Apparently neither of them had been up to playing the scene that had been set up for them.

“It'll give us a chance to talk. You know, Jeff doesn't tell me anything.”

“He's really busy with work right now.”

Karen frowned, probably filing the information away for future use. Sometimes Jensen wondered why she'd let Jeff leave her household at all, with the tabs she liked to keep on them. “Not too busy for you, I hope.”

“No, I mean...” Jensen fingered the DVD player and tried to get his thoughts together. He was already off his game from everything going on with Misha, and he wasn't sure how much he should share with Karen about the recent series of events. “He's just not really a phone person.”

“Hmm.” Karen tapped her nails on the door handle. “And how are you doing, sweetheart?”

“Okay,” he replied. Then, catching himself, he amended, “Great.”

“You know, I promised your Aunt Susan that Jeff would take care of you, and I didn't just mean financially.” Of course Jensen knew. Karen reminded him every time they saw each other. Sometimes Jensen was tempted to tell her that Jeff had started beating him since she'd last visited. “She asks about you all the time.”

“I'm doing great. I'm getting A's in all my classes.”

“That's wonderful, sweetheart. Jeffrey hasn't talked you into studying anything sensible, has he?”

“No, he wants me to study Art History.”

“Good.” Satisfied that Jensen was being sufficiently coddled, she moved on to the next order of business. “So, tell me about Misha.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Un-betaed, and it's been forever. I'm hoping to get back in the saddle.

Mark was waiting in the kitchen when Jeffrey got home, unwilling to leave Misha alone at the house. Jeffrey apologized, knowing it meant that Mark's own family's dinner was delayed.

“Whatever happened, he's taking it pretty hard,” Mark said. “He hasn't left his room all day.”

“He threw a pencil sharpener at my head and I sent him home.” When Mark didn't respond, he continued. “I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't think he can control himself.”

“It sounds like he can't.”

Jeffrey shrugged his helplessness from across the kitchen island. “What would you do?”

“I don't have the resources you do, Jeffrey. I wouldn't have taken him in.”

“You think I shouldn't have taken him in?”

“No! I think he needs professional care that I wouldn't be able to afford.”

“Yeah,” Jeff agreed. Professional care was a week off, though, and he was concerned about getting through the next few days. He wished Mark a good night and headed upstairs to Misha's room.

The door was slightly ajar, and he pushed it open to see Misha sitting on the bed with his arms wrapped around his knees. He walked in, noticing Misha's breathing quicken as he struggled not to flinch away.

“Are you still mad at me?”

“I wasn't mad at you. I want to talk about this with Traci next week, though.”

Misha chewed on his lip for a few seconds. “You always want to tell her about all the bad things I do.”

“It's not that,” Jeff denied. It was exactly that, though, when he thought about it. He'd been keeping a laundry list of the problems that he wanted to address during therapy. “I want you to be happy here, and throwing things at my head is a pretty clear sign that you're not happy.”

“I won't do it again. I promise.”

“I don't know that's a promise you're going to be able to keep.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Misha's face crumpled and he curled even tighter into himself, hiding his face in his knees. “I'm sorry.”

Jeff didn't respond. He didn't know how. Nothing he did or said helped. Even kindness and forgiveness just served to confuse and terrify Misha.

Misha turned his face back to Jeff, resting it on his knees. “Are you going to punish me?”

“Is that what you want?”

Misha shrugged. “I just want you to like me again.”

Jeff sat down beside him on the bed and took Misha's hand in his. “Baby, I still like you. What happened today doesn't change that.”

Staring at their entwined fingers, Misha nodded uncertainly. “But what if you get too sick of dealing with all my bullshit all the time?”

“Misha...” He cringed at Misha's choice of words, even though he knew they were most certainly an echo of someone else. A surge of protectiveness ran through him, and he wished he could safeguard Misha's past as well as he could his future. With his free hand, he gave the backs of Misha's fingers a small tap, then brought them to his mouth for a kiss. “There. Now you're punished. It's over.”

Misha blinked down at the fingers in question. “That was a really lame punishment.”

“You want me to try again?”

Misha's eyes darted to Jeff's face, assessing him quickly. He relaxed slightly at Jeff's expression, but stared back at his hands in silence.

“I should probably show you how,” Misha murmured, quietly enough that Jeffrey wasn't sure that he'd heard correctly. He was about to ask Misha to repeat himself when the boy's gaze crept up to meet him and Jeff saw the tentative anticipation on Misha's face. Misha was teasing him. Misha was teasing him and was terrified of his response. It was the first risk of its kind that Misha had taken since he'd arrived, and a relieved smile spread across Jeff's face.

“You want to smack me?”

“For demonstration purposes only,” Misha explained with his own small, secret smile.

Misha took the hand that Jeffrey offered him and started to smack it lightly. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

When Misha stopped, Jeffrey turned the tables on him, parroting the words and punctuating them with the same light smacks that Misha had given him. “Was that up to your exacting standards?”

Misha nodded and traced patterns on the back of the hand that Jeff had just “punished.”

“You know I never want to really hit you, Misha, right?”

When no response came, Jeffrey scooted closer, looking down as his fingers brushed across a scrap of paper. Misha looked down at his discovery, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and Jeffrey turned the slip over to read the notes they'd written each other on Misha's first morning, when he'd hid beneath the porch.

“You kept this?”

Misha nodded nervously. “Please don't make me throw it away.”

“Of course not.” Jeffrey handed the paper back to him, and Misha curled his fingers protectively around it. Running his hand across Misha's back one last time, Jeff stood and crossed over to the desk, where he grabbed a notepad and started writing.

_I'm so glad you're here._

He folded the paper carefully and passed it over to Misha, who pored over it before scribbling out his own response.

_Me, too._

 

* * *

“Sweetheart, I can't find the tea for the life of me.”

Jeffrey set his computer aside and looked over to his mother, who had poked her head into the den. He didn't even know whether they had tea in the house.

“It's in the cabinet above the refrigerator,” Jensen said, his eyes glued to the television in front of him, then let out a string of expletives as Misha used the minor distraction to implement some sort of video game attack that Jeffrey didn't understand.

“I'll get it for you,” Jeff offered, leaving his work and the post-apocalyptic world of whatever game the boys were playing behind.

“I don't understand why you send your staff home just when you need them the most,” his mother said, then continued on when he didn't get drawn into a long conversation about labor conditions and appropriate compensation for non-standard hours. “I found about ten varieties of Pop-Tarts, though. You boys shouldn't eat that junk. Did I tell you I saw an article saying that sugar's more addictive than cocaine?”

“Yeah, mom. Pop-Tarts are the new gateway drug.” He reached up and grabbed the box of tea for her.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” she said, taking out two tea bags and dropping them into the mugs waiting on the counter. “I just worry about you all the way down here, and Jensen seemed out of sorts when I talked to him over dinner.”

She took her mug in both hands and began to blow across the water. Jeffrey took the other and did the same, if only to delay responding. He hadn't had much tea since he came to Los Angeles, but it had been the conversation beverage of choice in his mother's house, doubly so when the conversations were difficult.

“I really wish you hadn't pressured him into going to Canter's with you. That's probably why he was so uncomfortable.”

“I didn't pressure him, Jeffrey. I invited him out to dinner. You make a big deal out of these things because you don't have real problems.”

“I have real problems!”

“No, you don't. You're a young, healthy, and rich head of a very nice household. You don't have any problems, so you see them where they don't exist, or you go out and invite them into your home.”

“Are you talking about Misha?”

“You have always had a tender spot for hard cases, and you tend to get in over your head. Do you remember what happened with that little bird you wanted to take care of?”

“Mom...” Jeff had been seven years old when he'd insisted they try to save a bird that had flown into their living room window. The bird hadn't made it through the night, but his mother had spent a quarter of a century using it as evidence of his soft heart.

“It's how I knew you'd take in Jensen after his parents died.”

“That is so offensive.” It took most of Jeffrey's self control not to shout at her. “I am not a child, anymore, and Jensen and Misha are not little birds.”

“I'm not trying to upset you, Jeffrey. I just think that boy needs professional help that you aren't qualified to give him. It's not the type of care that the household system can provide, even at its most ideal.”

“I really don't want to get into a conversation about politics.” If he let her, she would give him a thirty minute lecture about the ethical impact of subsumption of individual rights under those of a group.

“The fact that you consider it a political issue and not a human rights issue is-”

“Mom, I don't want to talk about it. Misha's getting professional help, and he's better off here than where he was before.”

“Where his human rights were violated,” she concluded, and Jeffrey slammed his mug down on the counter.

“For the love of God, domestic abuse existed before the HRA! But we also had massive unemployment, homelessness, and overcrowded prisons, and now we don't.” Jeffrey cursed himself for getting into a political argument with his mother.

“Real unemployment is actually higher, now, but it's just calculated-”

“I don't care, Mom!” He took a deep breath. “I'm sorry for yelling, but I really don't care about the unemployment rate. I just want to take care of my family.”

She sipped her tea and smiled at him. “I know, sweetheart. You've always had a soft heart for people around you.”

 

* * *

Jeff awoke with a start, probably the result of the looming presence in his bedroom doorway.

“What's the matter, Misha?”

“I had a nightmare. You were whipping me.”

Still heavy with sleep, Jeffrey waved him over and pulled down the covers on what had become Misha's side of the bed. “It was just a dream. Come here.”

“No, it really happened.”

As Misha remained stubbornly in the doorway, Jeff began to wake enough that he knew he'd have trouble falling back to sleep. He tried not to let it irritate him. “It wasn't real, baby. Come to bed, and I'll rub your back.”

“You're not listening to me!” Misha snapped, and Jensen stirred to Jeffrey's left. Jeff quickly tried to determine what was less likely to wake him: getting out of bed or whispering across the room.

“Misha, just-”

“No!” Misha stormed from the doorway, and Jeffrey let his head fall back against his pillow, ready to salvage the rest of the night.

“Go talk to him,” Jensen groaned, and Jeffrey turned his attention to soothing the boy next to him instead.

“It's okay. Just go back to sleep.” 

Jeffrey reached over to run a soothing hand across Jensen's shoulders, and Jensen, in turn, tried to shove him from the bed. “Go talk to him.”

“Jensen, it's two in the morning. We need to sleep.”

Jensen's feet joined his hands in their attempt to eject Jeffrey from his bed, and Jeffrey finally acquiesced. 

He stumbled down the back stairs to find Misha curled up on the porch swing. Jeffrey grabbed a blanker from the back of the sofa and walked about to the patio. Misha ignored him, staring blankly at the distant glow of Griffith Observatory.

“Hey, baby.”

Pulling his knees closer to his chest, Misha continued to gaze out into the hills.

“Do you still want to talk?” Jeff asked him, taking a seat beside him on the swing and covering them both with the blanket.

Misha pulled the blanket up to his chin and shook his head. Jeffrey joined him in staring out into the semi-wilderness of Griffith Park.

“Have you ever been up to the Observatory?”

Misha shook his head.

“We'll go sometime. They have a lot of exhibits. When you walk in, there's a Foucault's Pendulum. Have you ever seen one?”

He shook his head again, and Jeffrey wondered whether he was listening at all.

“It's a big ball handing from the ceiling, and it looks like it's slowly changing direction, but actually it's just the world turning underneath it.”

“Relativity,” Misha said absently, and Jeffrey drew back, startled by his casual labeling of advanced physics phenomena. 

“How did you know that?”

“I'm not an idiot.”

“I know you're not.” He brought a hand up to the side of Misha's face and gently turned it toward him. “I respect you, Misha, and if you want to talk, I'm listening.”

Misha dropped his eyes to the space between them and breathed deeply before speaking. “What happened in the dream, it really happened to me.”

Jeffrey stopped himself before he could outright contradict Misha's statement. “Baby, I'm really listening, but I don't believe that I whipped you in real life. I don't remember it happening, and I don't think I would do it.”

“I know, because you didn't.” Misha clutched his hair in his hands. “In real life it was somebody else, but in the dream, it was you. I don't know why.”

“Okay, okay.” He soothed his hands over Misha's upper arms until the boy's grip slackened and Jeffrey could hold him without the fear that Misha would rip his own hair out. “Do you want to talk about what really happened?”

“No, I want to tell you the dream, and you know that it really happened.”

Misha was silent long enough for Jeffrey to doubt he'd continue, but the story finally spilled out, a fragmented narrative of pain and fear. He held Misha through it, even as Misha completely ignored him to stare into the distance. When it was over, Misha looked around as if he were just coming back to himself. Jeffrey leaned in to kiss his cheek.

“Misha, I hope you can believe that's over now. I'm not going to hurt you like that.”

“I know that, but I still feel like you might.” Jeff searched for words to reassure him, but before he could speak, Misha curled into him. “It's not over.”


	9. Chapter 9

With music playing heavily in his ears as he studied, Jensen didn't notice Jeff behind him until he was close enough to smell his cologne. Jensen looked up just as Jeff leaned down for a kiss. 

Jensen pulled his earbuds off and stood to kiss Jeff again. Since Karen had left the day before, they’d been able to relax more into their relationship, rather than her expectations on it. “You're early.”

“I am.” He pulled Jensen to the sofa, where Misha already sat watching their interaction. “I stopped by the registration office today, and look what I picked up.”

He pulled several documents from a large folder, including the household register that Jensen assumed now held Misha's name. After rifling through the papers, Jeff held out an ID card for Misha. “Don't lose that, sweetheart.”

Misha grabbed it from Jeff and ran his fingers over the lettering with awe. “I won't. It's my treasure.” He grinned up at Jeff. “It has my name and your name.”

Before Jeff could respond, Misha had surged up and kissed him full on the lips. Something turned in Jensen’s chest, and he suddenly felt like an intruder as Misha pulled back and asked, “Can I wait for you in your room?”

Jeff almost caught his eye, but Jensen looked down before he could make out the expression on Jeff’s face. 

“Go ahead, baby. I’ll be right up.”

Misha bolted up the stairs, and Jensen tried to find something to occupy himself. Just as he’d settled on rearranging his course notes, Jeffrey’s arms slid around him.

“I'm going to talk to him before we go out to dinner.”

“Okay.” The lie fell flat. Jensen was not okay, and the worst part of it all was that he had no reason to be upset. Jeff hadn’t done anything wrong, and Misha hadn’t done anything wrong. The thought twisted Jeff’s comfort into something condescending, and Jensen tried desperately not to want it.

“Sweetheart, is there anything I can do to make this better for you?”

When he felt Jeff’s hand start to rub at the back of his neck, Jensen pulled away. “I’m fine.”

Jeff reluctantly let him go, then leaned in to give him a quick kiss. “All right. I love you, Jensen. I’m really proud of you.”

Jensen wasn’t sure how to react to that, so he nodded quickly and turned his attention to his course notes.

* * *

Jeffrey found Misha sitting on the bed, fidgeting and biting his lip.

“I didn’t know whether you wanted me to take my clothes off, of you wanted to take them off me, so I left them on,” he explained.

“It’s fine, baby. I’m glad you’re dressed.”

“Or you can watch me take them off.” He eyes darted around the room. “Or I can wear something else, if you want.”

Jeff stepped toward him, and Misha’s breath quickened. Misha’s reactions provided an unwelcome insight into a new facet of his life in his previous home, and Jeff wasn’t sure what to do with it. Jensen’s innocence when he’d arrived had been matched with a lack of experience that made things straightforward, if not easy. Misha, on the other hand, was fiercely experienced in ways that the boy clearly didn’t understand, or at least didn’t understand the same way that Jeff did.

He’d already set up a therapy appointment for later in the week. The thought encouraged him as he cross the room to take Misha in his arms. Misha returned the hug, fingers slowly creeping around his torso until they were snugly locked together. Jeff rested his chin on the top of Misha’s head, thinking through his next few words, when Misha asked, “Do you want me to suck you now?”

Jeff’s hold tightened, then he let go to peer down into Misha’s open and anxious face. “Not tonight, baby. We’re going to go out to dinner.”

Brow furrowed, Misha looked down. “After dinner?”

“Baby, we have our whole lives together. We don’t have to rush.”

It was a line that had never exactly worked with Jensen, but Misha just nodded thoughtfully. “Can we go back to the Target restaurant?”

Jeff couldn’t resist pulling Misha into another hug. “I love you, baby.”

* * *

Misha sat nestled between Jeffrey and Jensen at the teppanyaki restaurant they'd gone to instead of the Target restaurant, which hadn't been fancy enough for such an important dinner. Misha was the guest of honor, which is why he was sitting in the middle of all of them. He also got to choose all the little dishes he wanted from the menu, but three at a time so they didn't fill up the table. It was an exciting dinner, with big knives and fire, like a dragon was making all of their food. Misha was the dragon tamer and the dragon would bow to his every whim, like pork fried rice and scallops.

“How do you like it?” Jeff asked him, and Misha was ripped from his dragon taming duties to answer.

“It's good, but you better not ask me, or the dragon will pull free from my spell and destroy us all!”

Jeffrey's smile went crooked, and Misha tried to cast a spell to put it right again, but his spells were only working on dragons.

“I'm glad you're having a good time.” Jeffrey put an arm around him, and Misha leaned into it. Jeffrey didn't even care that he couldn't eat when Misha was in his arm, he wanted to hold Misha so bad. It wasn't even because Misha was a dragon tamer. Jeffrey didn't care about stuff like that. Misha used his chopsticks to feed Jeffrey a cube of steak, since his arm was too busy holding Misha.

Maybe it was good that his arm was there, because Misha thought he might fly up in the air any minute. Since he'd seen his new id card with Jeffrey's address – Misha's address – and the words ‘Head of Household: Jeffrey Dean Morgan’, he'd been floating. Even when Jeffrey didn't want to fuck him, he'd felt like something holding on to him had finally let go.

“Hey Misha, I got something for you,” Jensen said, and handed over a red gift bag. Misha held it before himself, savoring the excitement and mystery of having a secret gift in his hands that had been selected just for him. “Go ahead, open it.”

Pausing, Misha tried to catalog everything about the moment: Jeffrey's arm around him; the smell of food that he'd picked out, not just for himself, but for Jeffrey and Jensen, too; Jensen leaning toward him; a present that had been wrapped up specially to celebrate Misha's permanent residence; and in the middle Misha, with everyone looking at him happy and kind. He wanted the world to stay frozen like that forever.

“Are you okay, baby?” Jeffrey asked, and Misha nodded.

“I'm freezing it for later,” he explained.

Jeffrey kissed his temple, and Misha unfroze himself to feel it. “Open your present, Misha.”

Reaching into the bag and through the mess of tissue paper, Misha pulled out an MP3 player.

“It plays music,” Jensen told him, as if Misha couldn't read the packaging.

“Yeah, I know. I used to have one until John-” Misha didn't want to tell them that John had taken it away to give to someone else, someone who didn't turn everything into a shit show. A terrible thought churned inside him. “Was it yours until you had to give it to me?”

Jensen looked confused, probably because the idea was stupid. Jensen never did anything bad that Jeffrey would take his stuff away. He hoped they wouldn't ask them the bad thing he had done that had cost him the MP3 player. Instead, he tried to smile and not act like a worthless ingrate who didn't even notice all the nice things that people got for him. His mouth didn't listen, though, and all the people were pressing in on his skull from the inside and out, until he had to find his escape.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he said, and ran there before Jeffrey or Jensen could answer him. He hid in a stall and looked at the player. It was a newer model than the one he'd had before, and could hold ten times as many songs. He wanted to throw it in the toilet before anyone could take it away from him, but he also wanted to keep it for himself forever. He wished he thrown the old one into the toilet, and then when John had taken it away, he would have gotten cholera and been sorry.

“Does it remind you of something bad?” Jensen's voice asked from the other side of the stall door, just as his shoes appeared below it.

Misha nodded, and even though Jensen didn't see him, he must have understood, because he answered, “I'm so sorry. I'll take it back. You don't have to look at it.”

Misha clutched the device to his chest. “No, I want it. It's from you.”

He tried to pretend something, but it was too late. Hot tears were running down his face.

“Open the door, Misha,” Jensen asked, and Misha did so, then allowed Jensen to walk him back to their table, where Jeffrey took a napkin and started to wipe his tears away. “Do you want to go home?”

“But what about the green tea ice cream?” Misha sobbed. “It's Jensen's favorite.”

“It's okay, Misha,” Jensen said. “I just want you to feel better.”

Before Misha knew it, he was in the back seat of the sedan with Jensen, while Jeffrey took care of the bill in the restaurant. He sniffled into Jensen's shoulder until Jeffrey got into the driver's seat and reached back to set a styrofoam container and two plastic spoons on Jensen's lap.

“We'll be home soon, baby.” Jeff rubbed Misha's knee before turning back and starting the car.

The MP3 player that Misha had been allowed to keep, even after he'd turned everything into a shit show, sat heavy in his grip. Jeffrey and Jensen hadn't even gotten mad at him, at least not in the outside. Instead, Jensen was opening up the container to offer Misha some of the green tea ice cream from inside. Misha wiped the tears from his face and took a bite. It was perfect. The ice cream was perfect, and the dinner was perfect, and Jeffrey was perfect, and Jensen was perfect, and Misha wondered how he could survive if he fucked it all up.


End file.
